


Pluralis Majestatis

by derryday



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Awkwardness, Class Differences, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Sign Language, Slow Build, Victorian Attitudes, indecent proposal, mute character, very late trope_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 11:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7712539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryday/pseuds/derryday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the young Empress of the Isles has an unusual request, and turns to her Lord Protector for an answer.</p><blockquote>
  <p><br/><b>Royal we:</b> majestic plural (<em>pluralis majestatis</em> in Latin, literally, "the plural of majesty") <i>n.</i> The first-person plural pronoun used by a sovereign in formal address to refer to himself or herself. (<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Pluralis+majestatis">x</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_we">x</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I LIVE. [insert Mushu gif from 'Mulan'] This is a very late [](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**trope_bingo**](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) fic—so late that I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use the community tag—for the square 'indecent proposal' on [my card](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/173070.html?thread=1692430#cmt1692430)!  (Which I LOVE & am still gonna work on despite the fact that I've well and truly missed every deadline by now.)
> 
> I decided to take everything I love about the loss-of-virginity trope & just run with it & write as self-indulgently as possible. So if future chapters end up twice as long as this first one, don't worry, it's supposed to be like that. (What is this 'plotting' that you speak of?)
> 
> Have fun reading! <3
> 
>  **Edit 07/12/17:** Now with **[beautiful NSFW fanart](https://only-half-sfw.tumblr.com/post/157054668467/my-fanciest-smut-yet-wipes-tear-based-on-this)** by [lmaodies](http://lmaodies.tumblr.com/)! (Thank you so much, I still can't believe you made freakin' fanart of this story ♥) Go leave him some love!

> _A Proposal For the Consideration of Corvo Attano, Lord Protector:_
> 
> _Lord Attano,_
> 
> _As We believe there are no protocols currently in place to cover an inquiry such as this, We hope that you will forgive the informal nature of this missive._
> 
> _It has come to Our attention that, although We have been Empress for over a year, there are matters in which We are yet ignorant, save for the clinical study of theory. Specifically, the manifold acts of the marriage bed._
> 
> _As the theoretical field of study is already familiar to Us, We have decided to enter the field of practical application. Our proposal is simply this: that you, Lord Attano, divest Us of Our virginity, and assist Us in acquiring both practical knowledge and proficiency in carnal embrace._
> 
> _For your consideration, We present an explanation of Our choice. These points shall suffice:_
> 
> _
>   1. We have calculated the amount of time you might need to think about Our proposition and We believe four days to be fully sufficient. Should you agree, consummation of the proposal will be arranged at the beginning of the Fugue Feast, four days from today.
> _ _
>   2. Recently, You and Our royal self have been engaging in a number of acts adjacent to carnality (e.g.: kissing). Therefore, you are predisposed to handle this matter as well. We believe it is essential that you remain Our chosen companion through this planned exploration of thus far uncharted territory.
> _ _
>   3. You are seven years Our senior and thus presumably well ahead of Us in both experience and expertise. We wish for a thorough tutelage of intimate acts and We are certain that you meet Our requirements.
> _ _
>   4. This is an easily settled, though somewhat delicate matter, and We would not entrust it to anyone else. We first made your acquaintance a decade ago. The rapport and companionship that has built between you and Our self shall be an essential component in ensuring that We become educated.
> _ 

> 
> _We expect your reply at your earliest convenience._
> 
> _Yours faithfully,  
>  Jessamine Kaldwin I, Empress of the Isles._
> 
> _26th Day, Month of Songs, 1826._

It took Corvo two long strides to cover the distance to his desk. The letter flapped limply in his other hand as he reached for the pitcher. He brought it to his face, inhaling deeply.

But no sharp sting of alcohol assaulted his nose. The pitcher smelled only of tart apples and a hint of cinnamon. Corvo eyed the glass he'd poured, still half-filled with watered-down cider, but it looked normal. 

He took another sip, small enough that he had to focus to get it down, pressing what was left of his tongue to his soft palate to trigger the swallowing reflex. It tasted normal—so far as anything ever tasted normal to him. No powdery residue clung to his lips or coated the back of his throat.

The cider was safe, then. He hadn't been drugged. The frankly alarming missive he'd received was not a mirage sprung up from an addled mind. Maybe— maybe his eyes had just... become confused.

He skimmed the letter again. The neat, slightly slanted script remained the same. The words all but leaped up at him from the page. _Acts of the marriage bed... carnal embrace... uncharted territory..._

Corvo looked behind him, then inanely up. His office was empty. No court jesters perched on this windowsill, and nobody laughed at him from a hiding place under his desk. There was only the tread of booted feet in the hallways outside, birds chirping in the palace gardens, the manifold sounds of Dunwall Tower waking to another summer day.

The official-sounding, cool instruction had burned itself mercilessly into his eyes, never to be unseen again. He could picture it when he blinked. _Divest Us of Our Virginity._

What in the Void was Jessamine _doing?_

Held up against the morning sunlight, the paper yielded no hidden message. A more stubborn sort of code, then, Corvo decided: he flattened the page against the cool glass of the window, peered at the lettering. Surely the pen had pressed harder on some upstrokes, and if he could only put them together...

But the script was even and smooth. Corvo leaned closer. All he got was a dizzying whiff of floral spice, a trace of Jessamine's perfume still clinging to the page.

The letter looked the same laid out on the polished wood of Corvo's desk. He studied the writing, the slight sideways tilt of the capitals. A determined hand had guided this pen. No trembling hesitation hid in the smooth calligraphy.

There was no way to be sure if it was Jessamine's own handwriting. She'd been practicing several courtly scripts, attempting to come up with a combination that flowed easily from her hand but looked fit for an Empress. It'd been some time since Corvo had seen her own natural, untidy cursive.

He hoped fervently that this was hers. He did not want to imagine her dictating this letter to one of her many secretaries.

_A number of acts adjacent to carnality._ Corvo pinched the bridge of his nose. Well. It was true that they'd been engaging in certain... activities.

Being older than her by seven years, he should've expected at least that: Jessamine was a healthy young woman. Nearly all of Corvo's time was spent at her side. He might've been Serkonan but he was not bad-looking. It shouldn't have been such a surprise when, for lack of any other prospects, Jessamine's burgeoning feminine attentions had turned to him.

All they had done was kissing, just a few times, heady and bewildering like a youth's first sip of sparkling wine. Of that handful of occasions, Corvo had expected each one to be the last.

But then it'd kept happening again, each time with something new. Her gloved palm on his cheek when she stretched up. A yielding sigh when he relented and put a steadying hand on her waist. Her delicate, bare-fingered grip on his collar when she pulled him down to meet her in an unseen corner.

That was all that had happened. Hushed, secretive brushes of lips—only ever initiated by her, and close-mouthed, of course, because Corvo was many things but he liked to think he was not a complete fool. If she wished to steal a few covert kisses from her Royal Protector, then that was all he would give. There was no need to draw attention to the stunted stub of his tongue. No lady deserved to have that sprung on her, and certainly not Jessamine, with her fierce and curious eyes that held his deliciously captive and slipped closed only when their lips touched.

Corvo glanced at the clock. It was not quite nine in the morning. Soon the clock would chime, and guard shifts would change, and then he'd be inundated with reports and stern-faced captains knocking briskly on his door. Perhaps Jessamine would be equally swarmed with secretaries until they'd be almost late for Parliament...

He tucked the letter away and did up the buttons of his coat. The heavy fabric was too warm on his shoulders on the summer morning, but the Lord Protector could hardly be seen storming through the corridors in only his shirt and with a sheet of paper flapping behind him.

Mind made up, Corvo pushed his chair back and stood. He had ten minutes.

* * *

Far larger than his own, the Empress' office was usually a beehive of activity. Corvo had seen it crowded—secretaries chattering a mile a minute and spilling ink as they prepared documents for the Empress to sign, pompous nobles queued up outside the anteroom, insisting to the harried aides that they had to see the Empress presently.

Now, it was almost empty. Two smartly dressed servants were arranging a vase of fragrant summer flowers that made Corvo's nose itch even from the doorway. A number of secretaries buzzed around the bookshelves, sorting stacks of paper. Just by the balcony, a housekeeper was speaking to Jessamine herself. 

The balcony door was wide open, admitting morning sunshine and the briny smell of the sea. Jessamine had one hand on the frame, and was nodding to the housekeeper as the portly woman gestured with a sheaf of paper. Corvo got the impression that she'd meant to venture outside before her day began with paperwork, but the woman had waylaid her, and now Jessamine was too polite to send her away, but still held out hope for a breath of fresh air.

By the doors just beyond the anteroom, Corvo hesitated. He was slightly out of breath from taking the stairs two at a time. The flower-bearing servants gave him identical looks of cool disdain. The letter was all but burning a hole into his coat.

Blood still rushed in his ears. His face had to be positively maroon by now. If anyone knew he was standing her with the words _"divest Us of Our virginity"_ pressed right up against his beating heart...

And there was still a chance, he realized, however slim, that the letter had been some sort of prank.

He shifted on his feet, wishing he could've gotten her attention with a quietly spoken word. If it _was_ a prank, he couldn't just thrust the letter into her face in front of all and sundry. That would shame her. But he had to do _something_. Soon the hustle and bustle of the day would sweep them both away, and he could not leave this matter unresolved...

When Jessamine turned back to the room, Corvo almost sighed in relief. She spotted him hovering by the door and— didn't exactly flinch at the sight of him. But a thread of tension snapped itself straight in her spine.

"Ah, Lord Attano," she said.

Her voice betrayed nothing, formal and cool as always. Corvo put one hand behind his back, the other to his heart— _carnal embrace,_ the words were right _there,_ and he had to fight down a sudden unhinged chuckle—and bowed.

Some members of Parliament had developed a penchant for careless, half-hearted dips—a sloppy habit that her late father would've culled with immediate sternness. But somehow, even after all this time, Corvo had never shaken the habit of putting conscious thought into it. Now, he bowed as respectfully as always, distantly grateful for the brief chance to hide his face.

The Empress acknowledged him with a nod. Her hand flexed on the door frame—an unexpected nervous gesture. But her voice was as calm as ever as she raised it over the muted murmur of her secretaries. "Leave us," she said to the room at large.

Cut off mid-sentence, the housekeeper curtsied hastily and hurried away to the door. The flower-arranging servants sent Corvo twin scowls as they went past, as though he had personally thrown them out at gunpoint. The door clicked shut.

Somewhat stunned, Corvo blinked into the silence. He hadn't expected it to be this easy. He had thought he'd have to painstakingly pick his way through the minefield—explain that this matter would best be discussed in private, and that she might pretend she didn't know what he meant. He hadn't expected her to be so practical about it.

The letter seemed hot between his fingers when he drew it out of his coat. Jessamine's gaze dropped to the folded paper. A very light flush stained her cheeks—unlike Corvo's, probably, who still felt like his face was on fire and a permanent, desperately confused frown was etching itself between his eyebrows.

"You received my letter, then," Jessamine said—pointlessly, since he was holding it in his very hand. She came down the steps and took it from him, as lightly as if it were merely an innocent note regarding the weather.

The paper flipped open along its crisply folded edge. She skimmed the neat writing, then frowned and looked up at him. "But this is just my proposal," she said. "Where's your reply? Don't tell me you've misplaced your seal again."

Her lips quirked into a small smirk, inviting him to share the joke. But the only spark he saw in her eyes was one of anxiety, sudden and bright, the one sign of disquiet that slipped through.

Corvo stared at her for a moment. Did she seriously expect him to have penned a formal response to her— _proposal—_ and dripped hot wax on the closed edges like any official document and pressed his seal on top?

Her gaze skittered, uncertain, then found his hands, which he was raising to sign. "Oh, there it is," she said, nodding at his left. "Were you out of wax, then?"

Corvo spared only a brief glance for the signet ring. He wore it with a certain amount of reluctance. If he neglected to put it on, the courtiers harangued him, insisting that it was a sign of his station that he ought to show off with pride.

She had a way of— not babbling, exactly, but dropping words like lures and decoys when she was unsure. Sometimes Corvo wondered whether she would have developed the same habit over the years if he'd been able to fill her small, nervous silences with spoken words.

His hands hovered. He did not even know where to start. At last he signed, very slowly, _'What is this?'_

Jessamine raised one neatly plucked black eyebrow. For a moment Corvo thought she'd advise him to read her letter again if he hadn't grasped its meaning the first time. He rather suspected that'd be the point at which he'd burst into hysterical laughter.

Her eyes met his without hesitation, holding a shuttered challenge. "I would've thought I made it obvious enough."

_Obvious._ Well, she'd certainly done that, in addition to shrouding her reasoning in baffling mystery. _'This is inappropriate,'_ he signed. He tapped his wrist against his opposing thumb a little harder than necessary.

A few measured steps took her towards her desk, where the flowers still emitted their summery scent. She didn't have to ask what the gesture meant. It was a testament to her disposition that both she and Corvo were well familiar even with unusual signs such as 'inappropriate'. 'Reckless' was another, closely followed by 'dangerous'.

"Really, Corvo, I don't understand this fuss," Jessamine said. "I doubt that I could've been any more straightforward."

A bland smile was sent his way. She spoke conversationally, with an air of slight boredom: the tone of a politician settling in for the long haul, leading and cajoling with words like a skilled musician with an oft-played instrument.

Corvo sighed. It wasn't that this demeanor was misplaced on Jessamine's slim shoulders. Truly, in the year since her father's death, Corvo had often thought that the mantle of a politician suited her. She wore it better and better, getting more used to it the more often she sat in her late father's chair in Parliament.

"Is it the time, perhaps?" Jessamine asked. Her eyes were very blue, with uncertainty flitting near-unseen through the depths. "Would you have preferred a longer period to consider my offer?"

The letter was no longer tucked into Corvo's coat, and yet he still felt the phantom heat of the memorized words against his chest. _We believe four days to be fully sufficient._

She'd allotted him the days before the Fugue Feast to think about it. Had she penned this into her calendar, then, with that same neat handwriting, amongst the myriad of things already on her agenda?

_Meet with royal tailor. Send acknowledgements of accepted invitations. Approve changed New Year dinner guest list. Proposition the Lord Protector._ He bit his lip so he wouldn't smile, helplessly, at the sheer absurdity of the thought.

Corvo could not imagine receiving such a proposal even further in advance—and having that much more time to fail to wrap his head around it. He shook his head. And it earned him a relieved smile.

Like sunlight through trees, it was brief but left a warm mark. She relaxed visibly, her shoulders dropping a little from their straight-backed perch.

Corvo paused, taken aback. She'd been truly _worried_ that he considered four days too short a time to ponder, as if— as if this were actually a serious request?

Jessamine busied herself with rearranging the flowers, her neck bent demurely to her task. Her white, starched collar just reached the wisps of hair at her nape that'd worked themselves out of the sleek pinned twist, combed and pulled mercilessly upwards just this morning by a determined handmaiden.

"I understand that you have... reservations," she said to the flowers. "But you needn't worry. It is not so great a leap of faith as you might think."

She glanced at him, quick but assessing, her eyes lingering on Corvo's hands. She needn't have bothered: they hung uselessly at his sides. There was absolutely no sign to convey his numb stumbling disbelief.

His mind was a great empty plane, turning end over end. It was one of the few occasions Corvo was sure that even if he'd still had his tongue, he would nevertheless have been struck speechless.

"It's a step further, that is all," Jessamine said. She turned the vase, pulling aimlessly on a few leaves. "I'm not completely ignorant, you know. I know very well where it leads when a man and a woman..."

She cleared her throat and subsided. To look at the furrow of concentration on her brow, one would've thought that these were the rarest flowers in all of Gristol. A wave of grassy scent wafted over to him.

He barely noticed the burn in his sinuses anymore, because Jessamine was blushing. A glowing and breakable thing, it was, rosy color high on her cheeks. Her lips thinned in annoyance. She likely felt the heat rise to her face, a sign of embarrassment that she was powerless to stop even with the most carefully exerted control.

Perhaps she mistook his silence for obstinacy. "Oh, come now," she said. "It cannot have escaped your notice that we've been engaging in such matters."

Corvo almost bristled. Escaped his _notice?_ Where did she think he'd been during those precious, spun-glass moments when she had put her rosebud mouth on his and her slender hand on his cheek? Did she think he'd been going over duty rosters in his head, or devising new patrol routes?

"As I understand it, the bedchamber is the next stage," Jessamine declared. She met his eyes head-on, now, and didn't seem to notice that her fingers were still plucking at the flowers. "And since it needs to be done away with—"

That, at last, Corvo could find something to say to. There was no more room for misunderstanding: he had to know. He signed, _'What do you mean?'_

Jessamine looked at him, her gaze clear and guileless and almost exasperated. "My virginity, of course."

Corvo twitched. He barely managed to suppress the urge to look over his shoulder, then stared at her in mute panic. Wasn't she worried about her spacious office _echoing,_ didn't she know that the servants she'd dismissed were likely loitering just outside, waiting until their Empress permitted them to continue in their duties?

And oh, what he wouldn't have given, in that moment, to be able to _speak._

Not yell, precisely—that would've been thoroughly unbecoming. But at least he would've demanded in a politely raised voice that she start explaining _in detail_ what in the Void was going through her head.

And Jessamine was still talking. His hearing had briefly grayed out into a rush of shock to hear her use that— that _word_ so plainly. 

"—free to choose, of course," she was saying. "I was certain that that would be implied, but perhaps I should've added a clause at the end." Her hands fidgeted briefly with the vase. "If you are unwilling, please rest assured there won't be any repercussions."

Corvo held up a hand, relieved when she paused. As young as she'd been when they had met, that had been a thing that she'd understood: he was unable to interrupt her vocally. Excepting the occasional teenage tantrum, Jessamine usually fell silent when he bade her thus. Seldom, if ever, did she turn her back to him, and reacted with swift attention even when he only raised one hand to brush an errant strand of hair from his eyes.

He went as slowly as he hadn't since she'd first started learning the language of gestures. _'It needs to be done away with?'_ he repeated. 

The placid glass of her resolve cracked. Just for a moment, Corvo saw something liquid and fleeting in Jessamine's eyes, a young and trembling nervous thing that fled like a bird startled into flight.

The second passed, unused. The Empress drew herself up, chin raised defiantly. "Yes," she replied. "I've decided that it must be done, and so it will."

To the Void with his lack of— of _finesse,_ of any delicacy whatsoever in the art of words, spoken or signed. Corvo allowed himself a short, frustrated huff. 

He'd only meant to... to ensure that there was no misunderstanding. But somehow he had managed to imply that the Lord Protector had the right to pass judgement on the Empress' decisions about her womanhood.

A knock on the door stilled his hands, half-raised.

A flinch went through Jessamine's rigid back. She took a startled step away from the desk. 

"Your majesty," said the housekeeper's muffled voice, sounding truly pained to be interrupting, "I beg your forgiveness, but I must ask you to reconsider the guest list for the New Year's ball..."

As soon as she glanced at the door, it was like a shroud had been lifted: the near-physical weight of her gaze on him was gone, and Corvo breathed in.

Sound trickled back into his awareness—the morning birds and their songs, the pace of booted feet in the courtyard below the balcony. A curious, crackling silence seemed to have descended upon the room as soon as the servants had left them alone.

"Of course," Jessamine called back. For all that her cheeks had flushed again, her voice was steady. "Just a moment."

She cast a somewhat regretful glance at the flowers. They, at least, hadn't survived this encounter unscathed. They looked the worse for wear, untidy and ragged where she'd fidgeted with them.

Three long steps took Jessamine around the desk and to his side. On the way, she snatched up her proposal and folded it once more, a brisk, untidy gesture that wrinkled the expensive paper.

She held out the letter, close enough that the breeze she'd dragged behind herself hit him with the summery smell of flowers.

With the windows at her back, her eyes looked darker, shrouded in impenetrable determination. Corvo sniffled, struggling not to sneeze. He took the letter back without thinking, simply because she was all but waving it in his face.

"This business is mine," Jessamine said, almost a warning, and stepped away. "Your involvement is entirely optional. If you are unwilling, you need only inform me that you decline. —Come in!"

That last one, she called to the door, barely pausing. In the hallway and the library below, the clocks struck nine.

The housekeeper burst back into the room, followed by a short throng of secretaries. The servants were still there, rushing to the desk as though it was of absolutely vital importance that the flowers be checked on before the Empress made her first signature of the day under some report.

Jessamine met them all with a calm smile. She took the sheaf of paper that the housekeeper thrust at her. Her other hand smoothed over her hair, a fidgety gesture, and that hand had moved across this paper... 

Corvo realized he was still holding her letter. He tucked it hastily inside his coat. In a neat, straightforward script, the Empress' hands had written to him of carnality, matters of the _bedchamber..._

Words that were now, once again, pressed up against his chest, and that made barely any more sense than they had when he'd first beheld them in his own office.

Corvo stared at the back of Jessamine's head. He felt dazed, immovable, like he'd received a blow to the head in the training ring. 

The housekeeper was gesturing animatedly with her pen, not seeming to notice that it dripped ink down the front of her sensible dress. Behind her, secretaries fidgeted, waiting their turn.

By the desk, the two servants were back at work. They tutted over the flowers, trying to fluff up the wilted ones. He found himself unexpectedly hit with a dark glance, fired by one man over his companion's shoulder, as if he'd been the one to vandalize their artwork.

Finally, Corvo turned away and sneezed.

* * *

Their first kiss: behind the great pine trees that her father had planted towards the eastern edge of the palace gardens.

The gazebo had hid them from view. Jessamine's hand had found his collar, and just rested there for a long, fragile moment. Her fingers had trembled in the cool spring air, until she'd leaned up. Her lips had been dry and sweet.

* * *

Of course it hadn't come out of nowhere. There had been... signs.

Signs that Corvo had failed to read at the time. He was an excellent swordsman and, he hoped, a decent instructor and training partner for the other guards. But it appeared he was absolutely dreadful at matters adjacent to romance.

A touch that lingered longer on his arm than necessary when he helped her down from a carriage. A new timbre in the well-trodden paths of their conversations. A deep, sparking interest in her expressive eyes when he bid her good night at the end of a day.

The first few times, Corvo had thought that'd be it: Jessamine looking at him a little too long, pink staining her cheeks as she walked closer to him than usual, her smile lighting bright and warm when she greeted him in the morning.

Each moment, he'd thought, might be the last. They were unbecoming on him, out of place. But he had treasured them like soft, dewy rose petals. So long as they were offered freely, perhaps they might rest, for a time, as guests in his carefully cupped hands, until Jessamine chose to take them back.

Eventually, once she felt bolder, Jessamine would turn to courtiers and visiting dignitaries. Corvo would be consigned back to his proper place, four steps behind her and one to the left, as she bestowed her smiles and blushes upon more fitting companions.

And what did it matter that there'd always been a fragile thing inside his heart that shook under her gaze? The parts of him that sung like plucked strings when she was near and wished, with a steady, tender warmth, for nothing more than her happiness...

Those had to be kept close, tucked out of sight. In the grand scheme of things, Corvo's heart mattered little. It could never be more than an answering, helpless yearning, the deep glow of a winter fire—no consuming, possessive roar of flames, but something quieter, built to last.

By someone like him, the first chaste kisses of a young Empress could only ever be borrowed, never truly given. Corvo knew that. He'd made his peace with it.

And now— now Jessamine offered him this. Not a string of casually dropped petals, but a young rosebud. An unfurling flower, deposited into the shaking, dumbstruck hold of his callused hands just as it bloomed.

The signs had been so obvious. He'd seen, but not understood. The Serkonan Duke's hot, dusty training yards had not prepared him for this. He was out of his depth, a fool many times over for letting it get this far.

At some point, Jessamine's attentions would be snatched away: that was a fact, too simple to warrant questioning. And now they had led them to this dizzying, mystifying place where the _Empress of the Isles_ wrote to her Royal Protector—to _him_ —of a proposal to... to dispose of... 

He simply did not know what to do. How to act honorably in this. It was true that he'd been the one to receive her burgeoning feminine affections, and he'd guarded them like fragile sprouts. But surely that did not qualify him to...

Yes, he had accepted what she'd offered. But he'd taken care never to _take,_ so that when she was ready for greener pastures—all those young aristocrats that fawned over her in court—it'd take her nothing more than a light tug to pull away from him.

He'd never instigated anything himself. For every touch of her pale fingers, every breath that Corvo felt sighed out against his cheek when their lips met, Jessamine had been the one to come to him.

Of course, propriety dictated he should decline her outrageous offer. But it'd been Jessamine herself who had well and truly chucked propriety out of the window when she'd written that letter.

When Jessamine had started— _looking_ at him like that, Corvo had fretted that perhaps she might start to feel that she owed him something. That she was signing away pieces of herself with each lingering glance, each kiss like a contract, and that was...

The thought alone sickened him. Only ever on her terms, and _only_ what he was sure she wanted. He would never, _never_ have presumed to spot a promise in her smiles or her blushing cheeks.

But surely, if she'd felt pressed onwards by her own actions, he would've noticed. He was her bodyguard first and foremost, but over time he'd also become her friend, as much as the gap between their stations allowed. Corvo _knew_ her. This morning, Jessamine had _told_ him it'd been her own freely-made decision, and she had not been lying.

Which meant, then, that she was serious. Jessamine Kaldwin I., in full possession of her mental faculties, had contemplated the matter of her virginity and taken resulting measures.

The Void help him, she'd offered him her maidenhood and _meant it._

* * *

But really, Corvo thought, scowling as his sword clashed with Geoff Curnow's, what had she been thinking, picking _him?_

It wasn't that he objected on principle to the high esteem she held him in. It honored him, certainly, as much as it was unsettling: if he'd had to guess who might become the Empress' first bed partner, himself was the last person he would've picked.

He was Serkonan. He was low-born, even if he wore the neatly sewn cottons of lower nobility. He was too serious or too honest by turns; the subtle jibes and platitudes of court were out of reach to his naturally earnest disposition.

Oh, he could converse with her well enough. But men with actual tongues in their heads had a vast advantage, able to disperse witticisms far easier than he, steering the flow of conversation and skilfully delivering compliments as ladies liked to hear.

He had nothing to his name but his skill at swordsmanship and the title Jessamine herself had bestowed upon him. No amount of finery could disguise the fact that he was just a soldier.

Among Dunwall's court, there were dozens of men who would have been a better choice. Men who could eat in polite company. Men with lands and titles who wouldn't have marched dumbstruck into her office, but who would've jumped at the chance to do her this service. Men with silk and jewels resting against their breast, who bore no collection of gnarled and white-shiny scars.

_"It is essential that you remain Our companion."_ That was what Jessamine had written. Corvo was sure that she'd believed that, at the time when her hand had guided the pen across the paper.

But what pressure would that conviction stand? Had it been called into question right when Corvo had disrupted her morning with his slow confusion?

Captain Curnow feinted to the left, then brought his sword around in a wide arc. His face was reddened with exertion and the summer afternoon heat. A cloud of dust wavered in the air, kicked up by their booted feet.

Corvo gritted his teeth through the instinctive rearing-back reaction, then darted forward along the slicing path of Curnow's weapon and smacked his sword away with the flat of his blade.

Their small audience, composed mostly of fresh-faced young recruits, gasped in surprise. From the corner of his eye, Corvo caught the glint of money changing hands. The Captain would have to remind the lower-ranking guards yet again that betting around the sparring ring was strictly forbidden.

He grunted when Curnow kicked him in the knee, hard enough to bruise. He swung his sword up just in time to block a strong downward blow. Along the blade, he could see Geoff's eyes—alight with the fire of battle, mere training though it was, but also puzzled, sensing in the half-hearted parries that Corvo's mind was far away.

Maybe it was different for Jessamine, in some way that Corvo couldn't grasp. But from his limited male understanding, he had always thought that a lady's virginity was something precious, only ever to be given to a man who had truly earned it with his long-lived and respectful affection.

Experimental kisses were one thing, lingering glances another. (The steady, banked warmth in Corvo's heart was... a thing best left out of the equation.) But that she would put _that_ in his hands, such a delicate and unique gift...

It wasn't for him. Corvo's hands were not made for holding. 

So far, by some stroke of luck, he had not harmed her. But her _virginity—_ that was too much. He'd damage the flower no matter how careful he tried to be. His rough palms were fit only for battle, to wrap around sword hilts and bruise from the recoil of a fired pistol.

Or were they?

Jessamine had certainly never found fault with his hands. And this morning she'd seemed most assured that her choice was a reasonable one.

Corvo pivoted on his heel. Sweat stuck his thin tunic to his back. He struck low at Geoff's legs, swept his sword up, but the Captain parried. The clash of steel rang painfully through the bones of Corvo's wrists. They spun together, Corvo snatching hold of Geoff's collar, but then a solid knee landed in his stomach, doubling him over.

Geoff's blunted practice sword came to tap onto his shoulder, and he froze. A collective groan and gasp went up from half of the spectators. Corvo sighed. He lowered his weapon, grimacing at the dull throb in his ribs, and made the gesture for surrender.

Curnow peered at him cautiously when they shook hands. Their audience was dispersing. Corvo pretended not to hear the tinkle of more money from lost bets as the guards walked off. Dust billowed in the hot, stale air.

"Three coins for your thoughts?" said Geoff, half-joking, but with some real concern underneath. At Corvo's raised eyebrow, he shrugged. "They look heavy enough to be worth more than a penny."

* * *

And that _end—_ "yours faithfully". Corvo had never heard of an Empress finishing off a piece of correspondence with "yours faithfully". It seemed too warm, too informal by far.

Or was it, truly? Corvo found his lips shaping the words, soundless, as his mind drifted. It was rare that he wished he'd felt more at home navigating the shrewd waters of the court. Even with the title of _Lord_ Protector, Corvo's duties were simple: keep in peak fighting condition and follow at the Empress' heel. He hardly ever had to deal with formal matters.

Now, though, he found himself wondering. If he'd been of a nosier, more meddlesome disposition, perhaps he could've ferreted out some additional meaning from those two words. He could've found out which closing remarks made an appropriate end to an Empress' letters. "Best regards," maybe, or something equally clinical.

As it was, all he had to go on was the sweep of ink across the paper. The cursive hadn't faltered there. The upwards curve that formed the start of the 'Y' was just as smooth as the rest.

Jessamine's hand had written those words. Presently, that hand lay on the armrest of her chair. The fingers twitched, but weren't tracing the embroidery: a sign of impatience that had not yet tipped over into boredom.

Standing behind her chair, Corvo couldn't see her face, but he knew that she was looking down the long table with a mask of calm interest. Occasionally, her gaze would be straying to the bejeweled clock on the far wall.

The last Parliament session of the year dragged on. Noble lords traded barbs and thinly veiled insults that Corvo thought privately weren't that far removed from drunken jeering at a dirty tavern. Generals sat straight-backed and glaring, their uniforms glinting with medals.

How Jessamine could abide their endless, circular, ham-fisted scheming, Corvo did not know. She never said much when a session got like this, choosing to let even the unrulier specimen gesture extravagantly and deliver cutting remarks.

For that, some called her weak-willed. Probably because of her sex: the late Emperor had acted much the same, with that shrewd glint in his eyes, and all the courtiers had ever done was to praise his patience and gift for planning ahead.

Jessamine had told him once about the power of observation, cataloguing the nobles' petty grievances and turning them to her advantage. From her, it sounded half-hearted. She was still finding her feet in Parliament, for now choosing to imitate her father's approach. Corvo knew that if it'd been entirely up to her, she would've adopted the straightforward directness that suited her so well.

As direct as she'd been in that damned letter, for instance, which still sat folded inside Corvo's coat. With every breath he could feel the outline of the stiff, expensive paper.

_"Yours faithfully."_

Corvo looked around the room. Was it just him, or was the clock ticking slower than usual? Were he a lesser man, he might've wished for a disruption—an aristocrat losing his temper—just so he'd have something to do. At least it'd take his mind off his conundrum.

Not for the first time, he wondered when Jessamine had penned the letter. Last night, perhaps, alone in her office, lit by the cool glow of the whale oil lamps.

Had she been impatient for the ink to dry, and tossed some powder onto the page to help it along? But no grainy dust had clung to Corvo's hands. She'd let it air-dry, then, maybe skimming it once more—calm, assured, unaware of the turmoil her letter would stir up in her Lord Protector's overtaxed mind.

Jessamine's patience was wearing thin. Her fingers began a drum beat on the armrest. On the far side of the table, looking hungover and mean, the Pendleton twins were just waiting to interrupt an elderly admiral.

Corvo let out a long breath and settled in for another half-hour of poorly disguised sniping.

* * *

And then that moment in her office, just before the housekeeper had burst back in: "Your involvement is entirely optional."

Jessamine had said that, and at the time it'd gotten lost in the confusion. Corvo had stumbled onward, struggling to keep up with her neat, streamlined reasoning. It was only now that that remark came back to him.

_Entirely optional._ Did that mean she'd look... _elsewhere,_ if he declined?

A briny breeze from the sea tugged Corvo's hair out of his face. He and Captain Curnow sighed in united relief. It wasn't as hot on the ramparts, but even the late afternoon sun was relentless on their backs.

The afternoon patrol was not the time to dwell on what had dogged Corvo's steps all day. But those musings had almost taken on a mind of their own. They weren't unlike the newfangled machinery that was coming out of the Academy these days: once set into motion, they chugged and spun on, automated.

He let his gaze drift towards the guard towers up ahead. The blue and gold banners of the Kaldwin dynasty had hung limp with heat all day. Now, they billowed in the summer wind, unfurling towards the sea.

If Jessamine chose someone else... well, that was her prerogative. It was her body, her bedchamber, her— virginity— to do with as she pleased.

But what if her attentions fell on someone unworthy?

The round-cheeked youths who manned the turret saluted. Curnow waved them off. "All quiet?" he asked, and they talked over each other in their haste to respond to their Captain, but Corvo was barely listening.

The thought was there now, burrowing chilled talons in deep. Jessamine was clear-sighted and fiercely earnest, even-tempered and _strong,_ but...

She'd pointed out herself how new she was to this. High-born lords lingered around the fringes of her social circle, waiting to swoop down on their prey. If an expert seducer set his mind to winning her affections, even just temporarily, would she fall into the trap?

Maybe the new chosen companion would brag about his formidable conquest afterwards. Subtle gossip would spread through the court. Perhaps he'd make unkind remarks about Jessamine's inexperience, or about the softness around her belly that she'd gained over the past year, now that she was no longer a lanky adolescent.

Or that yet unnamed man might fancy himself in the Empress' good graces. He could try to press her for further encounters—read promises into her sweet, shy smiles and insist on a repeat performance.

Corvo breathed deeply around the constriction in his chest. The mere thought of Jessamine, pale and unhappy in the aftermath, with that furrow between her eyebrows that spoke of a burgeoning headache... it was enough to make him want to leap over the balustrade and hunt down the yet faceless courtier and...

It wasn't that Corvo thought the Empress a poor judge of character. Jessamine was a woman full grown. She could make her own decisions. The tumultuous surge of protective concern felt disrespectful, too possessive, and yet he could not swat it away.

If she chose someone and he hurt her... Corvo would... he would...

Well, actually, he would not presume to deprive Jessamine of the pleasure of ruining the unfortunate fool herself. But he'd watch. Be ready and discreet, in case she required aid, and hope that she would not, that she'd have no reason to lose sleep or rub an ache out of her temples, her eyes dark and troubled—

"Alright," Geoff said to him, jerking Corvo out of his thoughts. "I've watched you mope all day. Will you tell me what on earth is the matter with you?"

Corvo huffed in vague, directionless irritation. He gave the Captain just one sign, touching his thumb nail nearly to his lips: _'it's personal.'_

Just by the stairs that led down into the courtyard, Geoff stopped. He turned to Corvo, not quite blocking the way, but obviously resisting the brush-off. "I can see _that,"_ he said, dryly. "That's why I'm asking. If you had a problem with my new patrol route, I'm sure I would know about it by now."

Slowly, Corvo rubbed a hand down his face. His frustration was not for Geoff, not really, just for himself and this damned roundabout _fretting_ that he couldn't seem to quiet.

And he had to admit at least this much—Curnow had chosen this spot well. Only servants ever passed by these stairs. Up here, the wind was just strong enough to dull the murmur of Geoff's question to anyone passing by below.

Corvo found his hands raising almost on their own. _'Do you ever just—,'_ he hesitated, then went on, signing with haste before he lost his nerve, _'not know what's the right thing to do?'_

Geoff watched his hands, mouthing the words along with the gestures. A habit Corvo had always found somewhat amusing—Curnow wasn't as fluent in the language of signs as Jessamine, who had dropped that mannerism some time around her fifteenth birthday.

Corvo had to suppress a wince of guilty embarrassment. If the Captain knew what this was about... It felt like breaking Jessamine's confidence, even though Geoff had no way of divining the reason why Corvo had been so restless.

"I suppose," Geoff said, meditatively, with the air of one readying himself to be philosophical. He leaned his hip against the balustrade. "Did I ever tell you about the—"

Corvo cut him off with a raised palm. Any other time he would've welcomed his friend's extensive council. He would have to apologize for his rudeness later, but right now he was in no mood to listen to a lengthy personal story. 

_'What do you do in such a situation?'_ Corvo had to force his hands to slow; it wouldn't do to have to repeat himself because Geoff hadn't been able to keep up. _'When the path to honorable conduct is obscured? When it is not clear if such a path exists at all?'_

Geoff looked out across the river. The spires of the Rudshore Financial District stood out starkly against the pink-golden sky. Far down the Wrenhaven, Kaldwin's Bridge glittered like a mirage in the hot air. Buoys dotted the water, a string of bright pearls leading the way.

"I suppose," Geoff repeated, "I'd do what I prefer." He gave Corvo a long, searching look. "If my head couldn't tell me where to go, I'd try to trust my heart instead."

A chuff of breath escaped him, not quite a laugh but close. _Of course._ There he was, circled back to that private flutter of warmth in his chest that could have no place in this.

He should've known he'd end up back at this dead end. What he _preferred—_ by the Void, he hadn't even thought to wonder what that was. Was he supposed to presume that _any_ part of him, from his rough hands to the coat-tails of his uniform, could ever fit into the Empress' _bedchamber?_

What _he_ preferred... He could not think about that. All day, he hadn't dared to think about that. Those kinds of musings were for other men, more cultured, Gristol-born men, with lands and status and...

That squeezing ache in his heart, the warm, weightless drop he felt when Jessamine smiled at him—those were his to deal with, his to learn to handle. The mere thought of, of _acting_ on them was... unimaginably selfish. 

Next to the preservation of Jessamine's honor and happiness, what did it matter if this tight, burrowing sensation between his lungs turned over like a waking animal yearning towards the sun?

And Geoff was still watching him, eyes narrowed. Corvo let out a long breath. His damned face was giving him away again, too honest, always too expressive, as though to make up for his muteness. 

"Corvo," Geoff said—not a Captain of the guard speaking to the Lord Protector, but a friend addressing him in hushed tones. "What's this about?"

Corvo just shook his head, lips pressed together. _'Thank you,'_ he signed, more out of politeness than real gratitude, and shouldered past him.

If he took the stairs a bit faster than usual, well, it was not like he was running from that inquisitive, sharp look in Geoff's eyes. He had to get on with the patrol after all. There were still a number of crevices to account for. Surely it made sense to speed up his steps to waylay any rascal hidden around the battlements who hadn't yet succumbed to heat stroke.

None of this was Geoff's fault, of course. Corvo sighed to himself as the waterlock came into view. He'd have to apologize tomorrow. He'd been quite uncivil, dismissing his thoughtful advice, then leaving him there on the battlements...

The soldiers manning the bridge stood at attention as he passed. His steps echoed in the cavernous space, the sound carrying through the cooler air. Corvo went up to the railing: the deep drop always dizzied him, but he still glanced down into the long, narrow chute, morbidly fascinated. Far below, the Wrenhaven churned, little waves cresting foam-topped against the closed gates.

Sokolov's machines sat dormant and still against the far wall. It was just as well—Corvo wouldn't have known what to do even if they'd been smoking and spitting sparks onto the stone floor.

Stuffy heated afternoon air enveloped him on the narrow balcony. The metal structure creaked under his weight. This high up, the wind actually brought a little relief. It whipped his hair out of his face and cooled the sweat on his brow.

It wasn't Geoff's fault. If he'd known just what Corvo had been asking him, surely he would have answered differently. He certainly hadn't meant to back Corvo into the very corner he'd known he could not go.

Corvo braced his hands against the metal railing, heated up by the sun. This had to stop.

Geoff had spoken of his heart as a guide. A compass to use when his head couldn't point him in the right direction. But Corvo would be a right damned fool if he let himself believe, even for a second, that this applied to his situation.

And yet... Jessamine had _chosen_ him. If she'd really meant every word of her proposal, if she'd made a carefully evaluated decision—if it really _was_ entirely up to him...

A flock of seagulls flew past, crying hoarsely into the summer air. Corvo shoved away from the railing and strode back to the bridge. The soldiers quailed a little when they caught sight of his face, and their salutes were sloppy at best, but he paid them no mind.

No right. He had _no right_ to— to inflict his affections upon her, not when he knew himself unfit to receive hers. As soon as he paid any attention to his own softly beating heart, he no longer had the safety of Jessamine's in mind. And that was unacceptable.

But what if the two could be one and the same? If looking out for one meant tending to the other?

Halfway up the stairs to the pavilion, Corvo paused. He stared up at the roses that wreathed the archway without really seeing them. They were in full bloom, deep red blossoms turned towards the sun, dousing the air with their rich scent.

If Jessamine herself did not care one whit about his humble origins—then who was he to scoff at her poor choice of companion? If she trusted him not to harm that infinitely precious thing she'd put into his hands... was it truly so wrong that her offer had shaken him to the bone, left him dumbstruck with awe and the soaring of his own heart's blood, so attuned to her smiles and her moods and her fierce, feminine beauty?

Corvo sneezed into the crook of his elbow, then hastened up the rest of the stairs. His pulse hammered in his throat as if he'd run the whole way from the battlements.

Though Geoff was long gone, Corvo found himself looking at the spot where they'd stood, just above the courtyard. The Captain's words had struck deeper than he cared to admit. Maybe if he'd been any other man—at least born into lower nobility, not a soldier, not Serkonan, capable of speech...

He could not, would not dishonor her. It went against the very marrow of his soul.

(Jessamine trusted him with her life. Corvo knew that as surely as a compass pointed north. So why could he not wrap his protesting mind around the possibility that perhaps she'd trust him with her womanhood, too?)

Corvo shook his head and turned away. 

The sparks that ignited whenever their eyes met, the shy delight that her smiles brought him... none of that had any place in his current conundrum. His bewitched _heart,_ steady and enduring though he knew it to be, could never be a part of this vexing equation.

Or could it?

* * *

Their fourth kiss, in the gardens at sunset, on a warm spring evening: Jessamine had shed her embroidered jacket, left it draped over the balustrade as she went down the stone steps onto the soft, neatly groomed grass.

"Corvo, won't you join me?" she'd said, informal enough to give him pause.

He'd sent her a long, searching look that she'd held with just the barest hint of pink dusting her cheeks. But at last he'd inclined his head in acquiescence.

Jessamine's smile had been as bright as it was unexpected. Nervously, she'd brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face—after her long day, some strands had worked themselves loose from her customary updo. She looked over his shoulder and dismissed the other guards with a casual gesture.

In the gardens, Jessamine walked ahead of him, as she was wont to do. She eyed the grass speculatively and Corvo had the sudden impression that if the weather had been warmer, she might've stripped off her shoes and stockings to take a barefoot walk.

They rounded a corner by a tight cluster of windswept trees. The palace dropped out of sight behind them. In a heartbeat's time, Jessamine had stepped close to him, half-turning, until her fine leather slippers nearly trod on his boots.

Corvo had never been shy about meeting her eyes. His impediment meant he had to rely on nonverbal cues—a furrow of his brow, a hint of a smile—to convey what others did by modulating their voices. Perhaps it was impertinent of him; some courtiers certainly thought so. But Jessamine had never complained, had only ever rewarded his fearlessness with an open, honest gaze of her own.

Now, the eye contact hit him unexpectedly. A jolt went through him and settled hot and shivery behind his ribs. Jessamine had looked at him for a long moment, and Corvo had caught himself swaying forward just a bit—

Then she'd smiled, hesitant, and offered him her hand.

They'd walked side by side, Jessamine's palm nestled safely in the crook of his elbow. The point of contact sent small shivers all the way up to his shoulder. Under his coat, the hair on his forearm prickled into gooseflesh.

The scent of her perfume drifted towards him. It mingled with the grassy smell of the gardens; not as strong as the summer flowers that made his eyes itch. Her hand was such a light weight on his arm, like a young and curious bird.

Their strides aligned, allowing them to walk easily side by side. With a sigh, she turned her face into the breeze. It was like she'd stripped off more than just the jacket; the day's responsibilities and troubles seemed to drop from her shoulders as well.

"What was it like," she asked, without preamble, "coming to Dunwall?"

They passed into the shadow of a neatly trimmed hedge. Far below the balustrades, the Wrenhaven River crashed its waves against the steep cliff. Seagulls cried out to each other as they rose on the updraft, their wings painted rosy gold by the sunset.

Corvo thought about what to tell her. How miserably seasick he'd been on the ship, and how the sailors had laughed at him, mostly good-naturedly. That first sight of Dunwall rising from the mist, industrial, stern and imposing, so different from Karnaca's sun-bleached shingled rooftops.

He'd had to relearn the language of hands almost from the ground up, as it was so different in Gristol. Homesickness, unexpected but strong, had gripped him those first few months. And then he'd met Jessamine for the first time, then the Emperor's daughter and heiress, coiffed and rosy-cheeked in her stiff finery, her curious blue eyes meeting his head on.

Finally, he just signed—a trifle awkwardly, trying not to dislodge her hold on his arm— _'It was difficult at times, but I was fortunate that I was so young.'_

Jessamine gave him a fleeting smile. "I can hardly guess what I would've been like, had I been uprooted from here at eighteen," she said. "I would've kicked up a right fuss if Father had sent me to Karnaca."

Corvo half-shrugged; privately he thought she was selling herself short. _'You would have adjusted, as did I. And the Duke informed me weeks in advance that I was to go to Dunwall, so I had time to prepare.'_

He didn't mention that protesting had never crossed his mind. He was a soldier, a talented swordsman, and he had heard an order and obeyed it. The Duke had all but created him, raised him up from the dusty back alleys and granted him a good education and formal training. Disobeying him had not ever been a consideration.

"I know hardly anything about your previous life," Jessamine said idly.

They were walking so close that Corvo felt the warmth that rose from her body. Her perfume was something spicy tonight, a note heavier than her usual flowery preferences. It rose to his head like wine, scattered his thoughts like pearls falling from a torn necklace.

It was the type of remark she'd dropped at his feet quite often, back when her father had been still alive: her manners too polite to ask outright, but her curiosity still prodding her along. She'd never seemed to mind his evasive replies. She was curious, but content to let him be what he was, without digging up everything he had been.

_'My low birth is no secret to you,'_ he signed.

Jessamine stopped him with her other hand on his arm. Both her palms were on his arm now, he thought dizzily, and surely there was some rule of propriety against that... but it was _her_ touching _him_ , so perhaps it was alright not to brush her away; the Empress of the Isles could decide for herself where she wished to put her hands...

"I'm sorry," Jessamine said. "I shouldn't have— I... I forget that not everyone grows up in a gilded cage."

Corvo frowned at her, confused, and shook his head once—he saw no insult in her words. Did she think it took so little to offend him?

He should've formulated some reply, a brush-off or a witty rejoinder that stubbornly eluded him. But she held both of his hands, now. And how had that happened? They'd been walking only a second ago, and now Jessamine's warm fingers were wrapped around his.

"I only meant to say," she explained, almost blurting out the words, "that I don't care whether you were born to marble floors and opulence, or..."

She shrugged one shoulder, trailing off. Corvo's heart squeezed around a sudden ache. She was so young, and she'd been Empress for only a year, the thought of street urchins was still only an abstract concept to her.

Jessamine looked up at him. Her eyes were clear, though her lashes trembled a little and her cheeks had begun to stain red. A squeeze of her fingers around his: nerves, perhaps, or reassurance, as much for him as for her. The backs of her hands were cool to his touch, her palms slightly damp.

"I'm glad that you are here with me now, Corvo," she said. "Regardless of where you came from."

And suddenly, Corvo had wondered if perhaps she was blushing for their closeness too—if she felt his warmth as he did hers. Perhaps their clasped hands struck her just as much, deep and resounding like a bell.

The breeze seemed to push her closer. A loose strand of Jessamine's hair brushed Corvo's chin, soft and fleeting. He barely heard the river anymore. There was nothing but her, the shine of her eyes that stole the air from his lungs and quickened the hapless flutter of his pulse. 

Corvo's hands rested in her grip, motionless. He wanted to tell her that her trust was not misplaced, that he would protect her to his dying breath. She was— grateful for his presence, and he wouldn't let her down... but perhaps his swordsmanship was not quite what she'd meant...

That fourth time, she hadn't had to balance on her toes. With their shared moment hidden behind the hedges, Corvo had allowed himself this one concession: he'd leaned down to meet her.

Jessamine tilted her head up with a contented little sigh. Her eyes slipped half-shut. A bit off-center in her eagerness, her lips found the corner of his mouth first. The tip of her nose had been cold against his cheek.

The kiss had been unlike any other he had ever received. It'd lingered for several heartbeats, grew damp with the gentle puff of Jessamine's exhales against his mouth.

Corvo had stopped breathing altogether. The moist pressure of her lips commandeered all of his attention. Her fingers were warm between them now, twining with his and squeezing in reassurance.

It was like Corvo was the nervous one to be soothed, and he trembled straight down to his bones to feel it, the slow, gentle slide of Jessamine's mouth over his. His heart ached and thrashed in his chest. Had there ever been a kiss as soft as this, as careful and as sweet?

Something in him relaxed and bloomed into warmth. Jessamine deposited a small peck on his lower lip, then smiled and nudged him a little, and he'd sucked in air like a man dying, drinking in the delighted little laugh she muffled against his cheek.

"Breathe, Corvo," she'd advised in a whisper.

So he had. The scent of her perfume had filled his lungs in a dizzying whirl. It was not unlike in battle: his focus shrank into a narrow tunnel until the palace and the river were very far away. But the rush that filled him was sweet instead of sharp with adrenaline.

She rested her cheek against his collar. Her hair was warm and silky against his chin. His arms ached to hold her, but her fingers still clasped his, drawing small circles on the sinewy backs of his hands with her thumbs.

There was no telling how long they'd stood there. The breeze had made Jessamine shiver a little, and without thinking, Corvo had bowed his head against hers to shield her from the wind. Sweat collected between their palms, held so hot and close, but it didn't seem to matter. Their breaths mingled in the briny air.

* * *

It was only when the evening bell rang and the sky over Dunwall streaked pink and indigo at dusk that Corvo realized he still carried her letter.

At this hour, the Empress' office was deserted. The floor still shone from the servants' vigorous mopping. Holding his lantern up high, Corvo picked his way carefully across the damp marble. It wouldn't do to slip and smash the lantern in his fall and have guards come running.

In its pocket in Corvo's coat, the letter crinkled slightly. He would put it on the desk—folded shut, of course, with the broken seal facing the ceiling, so the secretaries would know it was part of the Empress' private correspondence.

Someone had opened the windows. The heavy embroidered curtains hung limply. The room was still too warm, stuffed with air that'd cooked in the sunlight all day. The flowers on Jessamine's desk had wilted in the heat. Even their leaves drooped and curled inwards.

Corvo put the lantern down. His nose began to itch, but less than it had this morning, when the flowers had been fresh. 

He deposited the proposal in the middle of the controlled chaos that was the Empress' desk after a day of work. Her aides forever despaired of the mess, but Jessamine remained serenely impervious to their polite complaints.

Reports and requisition forms were scattered this way and that. Correspondence from the Isles had been gathered into a lopsided stack. Some crumpled pages of thinner, cheaper paper indicated Jessamine's attempts at drafting replies.

By the warm lantern light, the letter looked innocuous, just a folded sheet with no hint to what lay inside. 

Even after a day spent chafing in the hot, slightly damp confines of Corvo's coat, the paper was still crisp. Pressed up close to his body heat, the wax of the seal had softened a bit, but the Kaldwin dynasty's crowned swans were still legible.

Corvo picked out an engraved pen from the mess and capped it with a sigh—it'd already stained a page of flowing calligraphy. At least the topmost desk drawer opened easily, so she hadn't crammed it full of boring reports.

He went to put the pen away, but had to catch a small avalanche first. A slim stack of paper all but fell out of the compartment, folded so haphazardly that it unbent as soon as the drawer opened.

A splotch of ink stained the edge. This handwriting was probably Jessamine's—slanted and untidy on her discarded drafts, with their crossed-out lines and scribbled additions. Corvo was halfway through folding it properly when he caught sight of his name.

Slowly, he let the papers fall back open. Looking at the Empress' private drafts—a breach of protocol, certainly not a capital offense but unheard of nonetheless. Corvo squinted at the writing, tried to look only for his name and not read anything else.

He found it right at the top of the page. The C had been written with so much momentum that the pen had leaked and forced Jessamine to draw out the rest to keep the ink from running together, the vowels of his name rounded almost comically.

Corvo glanced around the empty room. But of course he saw none of Jessamine's long dismissed stern governesses, ready to reprimand him for his deplorable peasant manners. The lantern flickered slightly in the late evening breeze. He stared at the flame without really seeing it, curiosity warring with decorum. Should he...?

His eyes were drawn back to his name, a magnetic pull. 

It wasn't his fault that he was a fast reader. The Duke had always insisted he should be as well versed in the art of letters as any high-born young man, far above the paltry skills of a foot soldier. Surely it wasn't too damning that he found himself skimming the first few lines within a heartbeat.

>   
>  _Corvo— I require your counsel with something that is quite close to my heart. I hope you'll forgive my lack of formality. I've been Empress for almost a year now and I cannot help but notice that the two of us have grown quite close. I'll tell you the truth: I want to ask you if you'd consider sharing my bed._
> 
> _I do not know how this sort of proposal is usually done, only that it is supposed to be subtle and romantic. I fear I have failed in this already. I would've liked to invite you to dine with me by candlelight (whale oil lamps have a rather cold, uninviting shine to them, don't you think?). As I suspect you would have a stroke if I said the words out loud, I've chosen to write to you instead._
> 
> _The truth is that I know I'll soon be expected to begin responding to suitors. The truth is that I harbor absolutely no patience for their inane roundabout dance of exquisite manners, empty flattery, and the glint of political aspirations in the eyes of my most persistent courtiers._
> 
> _I want to engage in a simpler dance—the one that is danced by the beating, feeling hearts of men and women, not Empresses and high-born lords. I would ask you to join me. I am yet unsure of the steps, but eager to learn with you and from you._
> 
> _Your lips are the first I have ever kissed. I would like it very much if you were my first in this as well. This is my choice and my sincere wish: that my virginity be shed in the consummation of the sexual act between us, for there is no one else with whom I would rather share my_

The letter cut off there. _Too forward,_ Jessamine had scribbled, a lopsided note to herself in the margin. _Do not give impression of unchaste hoyden. Don't emphasize necessity. I will not corner him._

With numb, shaking fingers, Corvo leafed through the rest of the pages. There was more of the same, crossed-out lines and long hesitations between words until the pen had begun to drip.

> _To the Lord Protector: I find myself in a bind that only you can help me out of. ~~The time grows near~~ As any young woman of my age, I will soon be ~~expected to allow~~ courted by lords far and wide, and ~~though I may be selfish~~ I know the time where I can put my own wishes ahead of my station grows short..._
> 
> _I've frankly no desire to kiss any lips but yours, for I can be sure that yours, at least, are honest..._
> 
> _Thus, We must be introduced to carnal embrace now, on Our own heart's terms, before We resign Our royal self to the tedious empty compliments of politically aspiring nobles..._
> 
> _Of course I won't ~~marry~~ be expected to accept any of the suitors, but I shall have to respond in some way, even just polite dismissals. Still, I fear that for you, a shadow will be cast by their attentions onto what the two of us have shared. I want to be clear: my affections for you will not change, regardless of how many fawning lords will bestow their flattery upon me. If anything, I expect my ~~feelings~~ trust in you to grow yet stronger..._
> 
> _If Our advances are unwelcome, please do not hesitate to let Us know. Your discomfort is unacceptable. ~~We wish you nothing but happiness.~~ It is Our sincere wish that you follow your own heart as well, no matter what its answer may be..._
> 
> _I hope I have not misread our recent ~~dalliances~~ ~~flirtations~~ closeness... I know little of such matters, but I had ~~hoped~~ ~~thought~~ hoped that perhaps you hold me in similarly high regard as I do you..._
> 
> _~~We would be most grateful~~ ~~Your assistance would please Us~~ We would be most grateful for your assistance if you choose to embark on this journey with Us... _

The truth was, Corvo thought, standing by the balcony door and looking down at the city, he might've been orbiting her for years, as close to the Empress as anyone could get. But still he stumbled across new hidden intricacies of her world.

The lanterns of the Estate District came alive one by one. Corvo could see them from here, little sparks of light painting a winding pattern of the streets. Lamplighters would be circulating, climbing their slim, rickety ladders to ignite the gas lamps.

He'd put the papers back where he'd found them. Clearly, they hadn't been meant for anyone's eyes but Jessamine's.

She had sat right here, alone—from the personal tone of her writing, he thought she must've definitely emptied her office. She'd sent away servants and secretaries and pondered her every word in the writing. She'd dipped her pen again and again when it ran dry in between hesitations.

The truth was that Corvo had not expected to find anything like this. 

He had let himself be blinded by her bravado, by the smooth evenness of her final proposal, where not one stray spot of ink marred the expensive paper. He had seen some of her anxiety in her office—the blush, her fidgety hands ruffling the flowers...

But somehow he still hadn't thought that drafts like these existed. That somewhere there were half-finished letters addressed to him where Jessamine's hand _had_ shaken in the writing, wrinkling the paper under her hesitant hand and crossing out entire words.

Corvo knew little of what it meant to be Empress. He saw the trappings of her station but the deeper implications eluded him: he had never lived that reality. Likewise, he couldn't be sure what it was like to be a woman in Jessamine's position.

What might it feel like, he thought, to be preserved on a pedestal like a carefully guarded work of art? Weighed down by the subtle restraints of her station, expected to blush and giggle at hollow compliments, and finally to come like a proper lady to her marriage bed, where ideally her virginity would seal a political union?

All those unspoken rules weren't quite as stern these days. A lady indulging her curiosity before her wedding night wasn't unheard of—still frowned upon, certainly, but not heaped with dishonor as it'd once been.

The truth was that Corvo did not, could not know the depths of those constraints. He was a man. He had never been held to the same stern standard of purity. 

He had no idea what it might feel like to realize that a part of him was— a commodity, almost. A future asset to an impersonal, advantageous match, to a man Jessamine hadn't even met yet.

Was it so outlandish, then, that Jessamine was taking action while she still could? To want to give that away on her own terms, to someone she chose not for the good of the Empire, but from her heart, before propriety demanded it of her...

As a man, no matter how steady and tender his pulse beat for Jessamine, Corvo's view was limited. His musings could never reveal to him Jessamine's reasoning as if it were his own. But now, a final puzzle piece slotted into place, and he reached at least fraction of true understanding.

He chose the same pen she had used. A fresh sheet of paper was quickly procured from the piles on her desk. The lantern opened easily to admit the small stick of sealing wax.

Carefully, Corvo pressed his signet ring into the splotch of red. He winced a bit at using her expensive wax instead of the more flaky and mundane stuff in his own desk; but surely she wouldn't mind, and if he went down to his office, he'd surely lose his nerve.

He left it there on top of her desk, too obvious to miss. The folded, sealed missive held only a single word.

_Yes._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the changed rating & added tags. ^_^
> 
> (Content notes: 1. there's a nod to past underaged thoughts of a vaguely sexual nature (on Jessamine's part, not Corvo's). The thoughts were not acted on, or even discussed, while she was still underage & they're only mentioned in passing here.
> 
> 2\. A reference to past mutilation, non-graphic (Corvo's tongue).)

Cicadas chirped and trilled in the underbrush. It was a warm summer night, clear-skied and fragrant with the scent of freshly cut grass from the garden.

Halfway up the wall, Corvo paused for breath and rested his shoulder against the wooden structure. He was lucky there was a lattice of roses right under the master bedroom's balcony. Thorns snagged on his clothes, but at least the delicately carved wood held his weight.

Jessamine had chosen to retire to the summer house for the Fugue Feast. It was where she'd spent most Fugues of her childhood: His Majesty Euhorn Jacob Kaldwin had been wary of the mischief that a young girl could get up to in Dunwall's lantern-lit streets, when music and laughter drifted around every corner and strange spices filled the air.

The Fugue Feast had regularly been one of Corvo's rare (though short) vacations. The Emperor had packed up his daughter and her handmaidens and a number of guards and spent the time until the Abbey's bell in his late wife's summer residence, a few miles north of Dunwall. And Corvo had been left to his own devices in the city. Sometimes he'd allowed the other guards to coax him down into the streets, danced with mask-wearing women and drank altogether too much spiced fruit punch.

But in that enchanted colorful whirl, his pulse had never beat quite this irregularly. Climbing up into the Empress' private chambers was more daunting than even Dunwall's Fugue nights. Under his coat, his shirt stuck to his back with nervous sweat. It was like he was an illicit lover from the songs and stories...

Corvo frowned to himself. That was— not quite right. He readjusted his grip on the wooden rungs, slowly letting out his breath. He was a... companion, for only one night, because that was what the Empress had asked of him. He was here as a teacher. A friend. 

The doors to the balcony were flung open wide to let in the warm night air. Corvo wrapped an arm around the railing. The delicate wood groaned in relief as he finally got off the lattice. 

The curtains swayed gently in the breeze, their gauzy softness billowing outwards as though beckoning him onward. The house was old, neither as large as some of the Empress' other mansions nor as stately as the Tower. No whale oil lamps lined these walls yet. Dozens of candles lit the room instead.

He saw Jessamine before she spotted him. She paced back and forth by the ticking grandfather clock.

Her steps were measured and slow, and Corvo was certain she would've protested that pacing would be unbecoming of an Empress, and that she was merely _thinking,_ choosing to let her feet carry her where they liked throughout.

But she was kneading her hands, smoothing down the folds of her night dress, toying with the lace collar... nervous tells that Corvo suspected he was only permitted to witness because she hadn't seen him yet.

By her standards, her gown was simple—made of white, flowing fabric, with ruffles down the front. Corvo removed a clingy vine from his sleeve and hooked one leg over the stone balustrade. 

Jessamine turned and saw him. Their gazes caught and held. He could've sworn she exhaled, shoulders sagging, like she'd thought he wouldn't come. Those anxious hands stilled. And she favored him with a smile, small but radiant, her cheeks tinting pink with a rush of unguarded delight.

Corvo found himself swaying towards her. His heart knocked around madly, pulled like the needle of a compass finding north. 

That smile, by the gods—it was as though he wasn't a lowly soldier climbing onto her balcony, but a jewel-bedecked lord who'd brought her the moon as a gift, and her eyes were so warm and _happy,_ drinking in the sight of him—

The soft leather toe of his boot snagged on the railing. Balance lost, Corvo flailed briefly, then toppled headfirst onto the balcony with a crash.

He hit the stone floor shoulder-first. Somehow he managed not to take down the curtains. With an ungainly half-roll he was on his knees, hip throbbing from the fall. 

Jessamine stared at him, wide-eyed. An involuntary snort escaped her before she clapped her hand over her mouth.

Gauze obscured Corvo's sight. He brushed it away and stared back into Jessamine's wide eyes, both of them struck momentarily silent. Stirred by the wind, the curtain settled gently atop his head.

Muffled running footsteps came from beyond the wall. Then someone knocked on the door—not the bedroom door, which would have been beyond improper, but the one to the antechamber.

"Your majesty?" said a gruff, concerned voice. "Your majesty, are you well?"

"—Yes," Jessamine called back, with only a moment's hesitation. "I— I knocked over my vanity..."

The guard's voice roused her: Jessamine sprung into action. To Corvo, she held up a quelling palm, but she needn't have bothered—he had already disentangled himself. He shoved the rumpled curtain back into the room and sank below the window.

He caught a glimpse of a dark blue robe as Jessamine flung it hastily around her shoulders and made a beeline for the door. She left it ajar, but Corvo only heard the murmur of her voice as she spoke to the guards.

But he did hear the decisive, "Good night, your majesty," from the resident captain. (Corvo took a moment to thank his lucky stars that it wasn't Geoff Curnow.)

The clack of heels snapping together echoed through the antechamber as the guard saluted and bowed. Then came the thump of a closing door, and the click and tumble of a lock turning.

Corvo rose and dusted himself off. When Jessamine came back, he was trying to smooth out the curtain he'd rumpled. Its soft, nearly transparent counterpart hung in fluid undisturbed folds in silent mockery of his efforts.

"I've told them I wish to retire," Jessamine said. She gestured over her shoulder to the antechamber. "We won't be disturbed again."

Her blue eyes still crinkled with suppressed nervous mirth. Corvo bowed, and she acknowledged him with a nod, like always—a sliver of familiarity.

A little huff escaped her, and she bit her lip on her smile. She peered at him worriedly, her mouth quirking, holding in laughter. "I'm so sorry, are you alright?"

Corvo stifled a sigh and nodded. Her Royal Protector had just _fallen_ into her bedroom, like some youth dazzled by the sight of a woman in nightclothes. Their night hadn't even properly begun and his dignity had already taken a blow.

But even through the squirming embarrassment, something loosened in his chest. His pride was such a small price to pay for the way Jessamine's eyes had lit up. For now, her hands had stopped their nervous wringing. Her laughter had drained out some of her tension. He would've gladly tripped into the room twice over if it quieted her thus. 

The blue robe landed on a chair in a blur of fabric. It was a small shock to see the nightgown again: Corvo had only ever seen her in the finest clothes Dunwall's tailors had to offer, carefully buttoned and folded.

To behold the billowing gown falling loosely around the shape of her hips, her naked ankles and feet peeking out from under the hem—it seemed wrong, jarring, a sight not meant for the likes of him. 

A caged, stifling unease descended on him. It was like he was dishonoring her with his gaze alone. Perhaps it wasn't quite too late to dive back off the balcony yet.

Jessamine cleared her throat. Corvo realized he'd been staring, and glanced away. "Please, sit," she said, gesturing genially around the room, as though this were like any other evening they'd shared in simple companionship.

She went to sit on the edge of the bed. It was neatly made, the sheets pristine and unwrinkled. 

Corvo felt a trickle of panic. With a quick glance, he assessed his options: for a bedroom, it was quite big, built in a lopsided rectangular shape to allow for a private adjacent bathroom.

There was a narrow couch on the other end, too far away for conversation. Did she want— was he meant to sit on the _bed_ with her? But he had only just come in, and barely a minute had passed since she'd been pacing and nervous...

There was the chair, though, where she'd just dropped the blue robe. Corvo perched on the very edge of it, trying not to wrinkle anything.

"Well," Jessamine said. Her hands lay folded stiffly in her lap. "I trust your journey was uneventful?"

 _'It was,'_ Corvo responded. Surely he was imagining the fine tremor of nerves in his fingers.

He hesitated, then added, more verbose than he normally would've, _'I had to change horses mid-afternoon. The heat was near unbearable.'_

"Oh yes," Jessamine said, almost talking over him. From the rapt attention on her face, Corvo would've thought that he'd just made the wittiest rejoinder she'd ever heard. Well, seen. "It's really been so hot this year, I thought you must've felt right at home?"

A confused pause passed in silence. Then Corvo realized she was speaking of Serkonos. He quickly signed back, _'Karnaca gets much hotter. It is no trouble for me.'_

His coat was far too warm, though. Nervous sweat prickled at the back of his neck. The crickets were really making quite a racket outside. He risked a glance towards the balcony. Maybe some inept assassin was skulking around down below, disturbing the nocturnal insects. 

In which case they'd have to abandon their whole endeavor, of course. Jessamine might be disappointed, but better disappointed than attacked... Corvo would go headfirst out of the window, falling mayhem descending upon the lout who dared disturb the Empress in her summer house...

Jessamine blew out a long sigh. The tense line of her back deflated. "The _weather,"_ she said, and rubbed a hand down her own blushing cheek. "It's Fugue night, and you are here, and I am talking about the weather."

She scooted upwards on the bed. A new determination shone in her eyes. She patted the blankets. ''You can sit here," she said, decisively. "If you want. You needn't sit so far away."

It felt better somehow, Corvo thought a moment later, sitting closer to her. For one thing, now Jessamine was smiling.

Nothing too overt, of course—but his heart still felt lighter for it. The mattress had sunk towards his greater weight, and perhaps it'd been his imagination but he thought he'd seen Jessamine shuffle closer, too.

She'd sneaked him a worried glance, as if to make sure she hadn't ordered him to her side. But now there was that curve to her mouth, and her hands weren't so unnaturally still anymore, picking idly at the folds of her nightgown.

Tonight he had stumbled across a plane of reality that shouldn't have existed: an uncanny section of the universe where _Corvo Attano_ had an image of the Empress in a night dress tucked away in his memory, seared there forevermore. 

But now Jessamine had invited him to sit beside her, of her own volition, whether it was proper or not. It felt— _right,_ somehow, following her lead.

And there were... things. A whole number of items that would need to be addressed before they... well, _before._ Things that had nothing to do with how Corvo's throat had closed with worry, seeing the Empress nervously pace the length of her candlelit bedroom.

He raised his hands, at the exact same moment that Jessamine said, "There's a few things I—"

They both paused. "Go ahead," Jessamine said. She was looking at him as though she wanted to peer right behind the bone of his skull and read his thoughts.

 _'If you have changed your mind about tonight,'_ Corvo signed slowly, reciting what he'd been repeating to himself on the horseback ride, _'it is alright to say so. These are unusual circumstances and there's no shame in withdrawing now. If you change your mind at any time tonight, please do not hesitate to let me know.'_

Perhaps he signed the "please" more insistently than usual, rubbing a circle on his chest with a flat palm. Jessamine blinked, clearly not having expected the flurry of words. Did it heighten her own nervousness, Corvo wondered suddenly, to see even her supposed tutor so wrong-footed?

But she gave him a lopsided smile. "Corvo, I assure you my mind remains sound and unchanged," she replied. Her eyes were bright and warm, playful. "I've thought this through quite a lot and I am not so easily cowed by my Lord Protector falling into my bedroom."

Jessamine paused. Her smile dimmed. "Unless— unless _you_ don't want...?"

 _'I do,'_ Corvo signed, quickly. If he had decided not to follow through with their... agreement, he would've sent a letter. He wouldn't have been so cruel as to get her hopes up and then shoot them down the moment he was there. 

Once again Jessamine folded her hands. This was a gesture Corvo had seen in Parliament, where the Empress wielded each word with care. "There are a few things I should say as well. To you," she added, hastily, as if there'd been a third person hidden under the bed. "Firstly, I... I am glad that you came, I— truly, I'm... grateful."

She winced even as the words tumbled out—she'd meant to say it with more decorum and earnest weight. Corvo could all but see her silently berating herself for her awkward stammering.

He could count on one hand the times he'd heard her stumble like that. Because it seemed that some reaction was expected from him, Corvo nodded. _'I keep my promises,'_ he replied. And then his fingers took a sudden life of their own, adding, _'And being here is no hardship.'_

He closed his eyes briefly. Was there something in the warm summer air that sent them both reeling, stumbling over their words? _No hardship_ indeed. Surely that had been too forward by far.

But Jessamine sent him a small smile. Just a quirk at the corner of her mouth, but it hit him like an unexpected feint in the training grounds—it was as though she, too, felt the ground shift beneath her feet, and struggled to find her balance.

"Well, secondly," she said, "I thought maybe we'd need a list." There her hands twisted lightly, her knuckles straining, but she held her head high. "An inventory of things I have done on my own, things that you need not educate me on."

Corvo blinked. Things that she'd... oh. 

She kept talking, but her voice faded into the background. With new determination, Corvo kept his eyes on her face. He would focus on the black sweep of Jessamine's eyelashes and stoutly refuse to think of anything but her familiar candlelit features.

He hadn't quite had a stroke when Jessamine's proposal had first reached his desk. But he might end up suffering one if she now produced a crisply written description of her private discoveries.

"—haven't brought it," Jessamine was saying. "There were only a few things on it anyway, and only those that a woman can do... alone, and I..."

She trailed off. A blush crept up her neck. Her hands fidgeted, then lay still.

And this was not the time to gawk at her, dumbstruck as she spoke of her womanhood. Corvo gave himself a firm mental shake. In the vicinity of his heart, something pulled painfully tight. 

There was nothing, _nothing_ for her to be ashamed of. He did not care what she'd done or not done before; anything she desired of him was hers. Whatever she wanted, whatever he could give, he would give gladly—

Corvo stilled his traitorous hands. He might not have grown up amidst courtly intrigues, but even he knew that it was not his place to lay such heartfelt promises at her feet. So in the end he just signed, _'I am sure we can manage without written assistance.'_

"Yes, I thought so as well," Jessamine said. Her cheeks were still tinged pink, but she sat up straighter and almost blurted, "Shall we begin?"

The Empress of the Isles fixed him with an expectant look. Corvo stared silently back. Her words seemed to echo, thrown into the room so quickly, like she'd been on the verge of losing her nerve.

His heart, at least, tried to answer her call. It thudded hard against his ribs. He'd heard it said that the organ was fist-sized, and his certainly felt like a fist now, an eager drum that sped his blood. But—

A roil of directionless anxiety caught hold of his stomach. It kindled into almost a kind of panic, as the wind rustled through the trees and stirred the curtains and the silence stretched on.

Of course he would eventually have to touch her tonight, just by the nature of their agreement. Jessamine had invited him as a teacher, after all. Perhaps he should've been making the first move minutes ago. 

But he could not just _presume_ that his hand on— her shoulder, for instance, would be welcome. Neither did he want her to think that he'd come half-unwilling, already annoyed with the task ahead of him.

Her poise regained, Jessamine did not wait until her Lord Protector had finished laboriously untangling his thoughts. She folded her hands neatly in her lap, and said, "May I have a kiss?"

Corvo almost sighed in relief. Directions, he could follow. _'Of course,'_ he signed. _'You need not ask.'_ And at last it slipped out anyway, on the heels of the easing tension: _'You can have anything you want.'_

The black sweep of her lashes touched her cheeks. Jessamine blinked at him, slow and astonished. "Oh," she breathed. 

Corvo blinked. She had not expected that. _Why_ did she not— surely she knew how honored he felt to be here? But at least she didn't knock it away like a poorly thrown pass during a ball game. 

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and somehow darker. Was it just Corvo's imagination, or had she come closer still? "Then I want a kiss."

Before, Corvo hadn't thought about how different it'd be like this. At the Tower, Jessamine had cast around furtive glances, and the back of Corvo's neck had prickled constantly with the danger of discovery.

Here in the Empress' bedroom, kissing turned out to be comfortingly familiar, an unexpected foothold. With a sigh of relief, he let himself sink into it. Jessamine pressed closer, rubbing her soft, soft mouth over the dip in his upper lip.

Jessamine's hands found his waist, pressing the fabric of his shirt to his skin. Her grip was firmer than he'd thought it would be. Goosebumps spread down his back, just from how her hold squeezed securely around his flanks.

"It's been so long," she said shakily. An endorsement, this, murmured against his mouth with her breath puffing against his cheek. "I... I've wanted you for so long, I hardly know where to start."

Corvo drew back a little, stunned. She'd not only wanted this first night, but... desired _him?_ A low-born mute soldier who bore the title of a lord only by the grace of her own choice? But her cheeks burned a sudden honest red: she hadn't meant to say that. It'd slipped out by accident, into the breath-warm space between them. 

Jessamine shook her head, dismissing her own vulnerable moment. "I do know how this part goes though, at least in theory," she said. "I'm not completely ignorant."

She pulled her feet up onto the mattress. The nightgown rucked up to her knees. The Empress of the Isles lowered herself to the pillows and stretched out her long, slim legs and Corvo yanked his gaze away from her fine-boned ankles—

Flat on her back, arms spread to span the width of the bed: she'd arranged herself like a patient about to undergo medical examination. "Alright," Jessamine said, with a determined glint in her eyes, "go on."

Discomfort chafed at him like an unfitting garment. Corvo saw his own shadow spread across the bed, looming over Jessamine's prone form, a consuming darkness cast by the candlelight.

He almost recoiled. _No._ This was not how he'd... he didn't want... it was wrong, so wrong, to see Jessamine— _offer_ herself like that. Passive, ready to hold still and bear whatever it was that'd come...

He flexed his fingers. He did not know what to say, but her eyes were wide and dark and he had to make this right. He signed, _'You wish to learn, yes?'_

"I do," Jessamine said. Puzzled, now, but even that was better than that composed and demure acceptance.

Corvo imagined that this must be what stammering felt like to a speaking person. His hands hovered. He had to tread as carefully as he would around a spring razor, but he had to find _some_ words, because he could not bear the the slack acceptance in Jessamine's spread arms.

_'With learning comes exploration. And there is no need to rush.'_

Jessamine propped herself up on her elbows. She stared at him with something like oncoming betrayal. "But my virginity—," she began, and broke off, baffled and vulnerable.

A colder shock shot through him: she thought he was withdrawing. He made a quelling gesture, frustrated that in his attempts to reassure her he'd put that wide-eyed hurt look on her face—

(Just a day ago, in a dusty corner of the library at the Tower, Corvo had looked up the sign for "virgin". He'd finger-spelled it a couple of times too, just to make sure he'd have it ready once it came up. He could have paraphrased with a less obscure sign, such as "innocence," but he'd wanted there to be no room for misunderstanding. Not on their night.)

 _'If you still wish it, we will get to your virginity later.'_ Two fingers forming a v-shape, a quick pass of a fingertip down his cheek. Jessamine did not even blink—perhaps she'd leafed through that very same book. _'But just because you've assigned me to be the tutor does not mean you cannot be in control.'_

Control: Corvo made the two-handed come-hither gesture, an offering. Jessamine's eyes darted across his face, wary and searching. She didn't quite know what he was offering. And how could she have, reclining entirely untouched and inexperienced in her own bed? 

Corvo took a deep breath. He toed off his boots and lined them neatly up beside the bed, socks inside. He shifted to sit sideways, facing her, but kept one foot on the floor so he could get up and back away quickly at her first sign of discomfort.

He held out his hand. At least Jessamine didn't hesitate: she put her palm in his, and Corvo helped her sit back up.

Just as he'd thought, seeing her upright again loosened his high-strung, squirming unease. _This_ was his Empress, fixing him with her inquisitive gaze. 

Lying prone, waiting to be devoured—it did not suit her. Her eyes were not made to be lowered demurely before anyone. She was meant to hold her head up high, just like she had on the day she'd asked him to bed with all the straight-forward poise that he liked so well about her.

That was how she'd be expected to come to her future husband's bed: laid out passive and waiting, a silent offering. But that was not her, not now. Not with him, if Corvo could at all avoid it. 

Jessamine was the graceful decisive swoop of her handwriting, a tinkling laugh on a misty spring morning, sparks of mischief in her sea-deep eyes. She was delicate flower-petal kisses and fierce, clever strength, and Corvo would not reduce her, couldn't bear the thought of leaning over her untouched, waiting body like a conqueror.

 _'You may do or try anything you wish,'_ he signed, slower than usual, shaping the gestures with precision. _'This night belongs to you.'_

If his fingers trembled, well, there were none to see but her. At least there was no way she could hear the thundering rush of his pulse. Corvo lowered his hands, then spread them open at his sides, waiting: an invitation.

"Well, alright," Jessamine said, slowly. Her eyes flickered across his face, searching, filing away every blink and small furrow of his brow. "But if we— if I do anything that you do not like, let me know at once."

An order, this, unmistakable and direct. Corvo inclined his head in assent. He thought it unlikely that there was anything a man and a woman could do together that he wouldn't like if she wished to explore it. 

He gave it back, though, because he'd meant to say it first and she'd beaten him to it. _'You too,'_ he signed, and impulsively added, _'please,'_ once again circling his palm on his chest.

His fighting prowess and swordsmanship might save her from assassins' blades, and yet there were invisible wounds, bruises and scrapes, that he couldn't guard against. There was nothing to be done about the chilled and ritualistic marriage bed that waited in her future. But even just for tonight, Corvo sought to protect her from even the briefest discomfort.

Unexpectedly, Jessamine smiled. Her lips parted in sudden understanding—surprised, perhaps, at the slow insistence of his hands. 

"I will," she said. "I promise." Perhaps unconsciously, she signed the tail end of it too, balling her hand and flattening her other palm on top, fingers spread. 

Corvo exhaled. It felt like the first breath he'd let out in minutes. 

She deserved— _everything,_ every sweetness and cherished moment that lying with a man had to offer. A blood-hot protectiveness settled into him, warming that bleak, chilled knowledge that he could not keep her safe forever. 

When she reached for him, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

* * *

She didn't always close her eyes when they kissed.

That very first time, Corvo had had a feeling that she'd kept looking at him through her lashes. He couldn't blame her: had it been his first kiss, he wouldn't have closed his eyes at all. 

Jessamine had stolen small peeks at him, anxiously cataloguing his reaction. Perhaps she'd feared he might let her do as she pleased just because he thought he had to. She couldn't have known that even that first time, her tentative touch had crashed over him in a surge of blinding, baffled delight.

Tonight, her lids fluttered shut more often than not. Their breaths mingled between them, with the slick, soft noises of kissing. 

Jessamine's lips were soft against his, plump and fever-hot. That was new, too. They'd never kissed for quite long enough to redden her mouth this sweetly. 

Small slivers of thoughts flitted through Corvo's head, like moths dancing around a flame. He'd shaved just this afternoon, but what if his cheeks still felt scratchy to her delicate skin? Jessamine's hands were a feather-light weight on his shoulders, not unlike perching birds. His own palms lay unused against his thighs: his arms ached to hold her, brush a hand down her back, but he would not lay a single finger on her unless she asked... 

Her lips detached from his with a wet smack. Jessamine leaned back enough to look at him. Maybe her touch was still a bit shy. But his clavicles must've been made for her, so neatly did her thumbs fit into the hollows above his collarbones, and her palms seemed molded to the shape of his shoulders.

"There's another thing— you see, before tonight...," she broke off, breathlessly, and took a visible moment to compose herself. 

A deep, glowing pink rose to her cheeks: she was so very unused to losing her train of thought. She cleared her throat and said, "We need not worry about conceiving. I've been drinking moon tea."

Her melodious voice was all whispery, raw from their kissing. Her pulse beat visibly in her throat, a quick pitter-patter against the translucent skin of her neck.

Corvo's fingers all but vibrated. He wanted to smooth a gentle thumb over the arch of her cheekbone, make sure that the blush was from excitement rather than embarrassment...

Then her words registered with him. _Conceiving_... and why, Corvo thought suddenly, why was it that Jessamine had had to bring it up on her own?

The risk of pregnancy: possibly the most obvious hurdle to be dodged tonight, and yet it'd fled Corvo's mind entirely as he'd toppled head over feet into her bedroom. He silently chastised himself. Surely this fell within his responsibilities as her tutor. He was supposed to guide her, not shiver at her touch like he was the one to be deflowered.

Taking his silence for confusion, Jessamine quirked a smile at him. "Why do you think I waited this long to ask you?" she said, pragmatically. "If I'd asked for moon tea from the Emperor's physicians, they would've told my father."

A bright and searing shock went through him, not unlike an electric jolt. Corvo stared, all thoughts in his head halted.

_"I've wanted you for so long, I hardly know where to start."_

Just a minute ago, those words had slipped from the tight hold she had on herself: a confession. It'd been true, then. She really had wanted this night—wanted _him_ —she'd thought about this even before her father's death. Not a fully formed plan, surely, but a glimmer on the horizon of her future...

Once again, Corvo had underestimated her. Jessamine Kaldwin had chosen him long before she'd sent off her letter.

Emotion swelled in his throat. At last, he dared to offer her one simple touch. He cupped her cheek in his palm and brushed his lips against her rosebud mouth. 

He kept the kiss soft, reverent. Jessamine's lips were supple and damp, opening into a sweet 'o' of surprise. Her eyes fluttered shut. His fingers were useless like this, smoothing over the downy hair at her temples. But there weren't words to what he might've said anyway—he knew no signs to describe the dizzy stumbling tripping of his heart.

They had shared numerous kisses, but when they parted, Jessamine kept her eyes closed for a long second and when she blinked them open, she looked as stunned as if it'd been the very first one.  
looked as stricken as if it'd been the first. Her hands clutched at his shoulders. A shivery breath went out of her, knocked loose by some unnameable surge of feeling. 

Could she sense, perhaps, the way his thoughts stuttered when she looked at him, or how each small press of her hands set him ablaze with sweet agony] watchful longing_ ever-watchful for her comfort?

Jessamine had to swallow twice before she could speak. "May I—," she asked, and cleared her throat. "That is, would it be alright if I removed your shirt?"

Corvo nodded his assent. Her hands trailed down his arms, as though her fingers were unwilling to part from the sturdy muscle that covered his shoulders. At last her touch released him, and he moved to disrobe. 

Just then, they moved so well together, it could've been their second or third night. He untucked his shirt from his trousers and Jessamine opened the laces at his throat. Together they pulled the fabric over his head.

And then he was bared to the waist, and an unexpected hectic rush shot through him, leaving a trail of jittery awareness.

He was Serkonan, but not outright unpleasant to look at. Perhaps his shoulders were too broad and the smattering of dark hair on his chest and stomach was thicker than any Gristol-born man's. But surely he had nothing to be ashamed of, from the well-toned muscles of his abs to the scars...

And oh, Void, the _scars._ It was a sudden dunk of cool water over his head: he hadn't thought to warn Jessamine about the scars.

For all that he'd thought very carefully about how to make sure Jessamine felt comfortable and safe through the night, this lack of planning was astounding. At least there weren't all that many marks on his chest. Corvo sighed at himself. So long as he remembered not to let her see his back, it would be well.

"Oh," Jessamine said softly. Her gaze flickered over him. One hand came half-raised to her chest, barely brushing the stiff ruffles of her nightgown. Her eyes were so very bright, and almost hungry, trying to take in all of him at once.

She did linger on the few scars she could see. But she didn't appear truly distressed. Corvo ignored the slow warmth that prickled in his cheeks. A small wrinkle between her eyebrows was the only sign of any disquiet she felt, and even that smoothed out when her gaze dropped lower...

Following the trail of hair down his stomach, Corvo realized, and sweeping a quick brazen look down the front of his trousers. Her keen gaze took in the rise and fall of his stomach with his breath.

The only piece of clothing he'd removed was his shirt. But under her frank appraisal, Corvo felt oddly like he'd taken off far more than that. Jessamine's eyes were peeling back another invisible layer, detaching it gently from the vulnerable core of him. 

The hair on his arms rose into goosebumps. It was like her gaze woke him, anchored him in his body. He'd been dimly aware of the breeze before, but now it flowed over his naked chest in a cooling trail. His cross-legged seat had become uncomfortable: without quite noticing, he'd begun to swell in his trousers.

Jessamine's hands hovered, outstretched. An unspoken question. Corvo tilted his chin down again—a little charmed despite himself; would she request his permission for every single touch? Then this night would be long indeed.

For a moment he thought she might touch her questing fingertips to his sternum, but then she went for the comforting familiarity of his shoulders again. She ran her thumbs over his collarbones, as though to test if they still fit there with the thin cloth of Corvo's shirt removed. 

Corvo's palms felt aching-empty where they grew slowly damp with sweat against his thighs. His groin ached too, a blunted, familiar pull. The tide in him rose not unlike his regard had for all these years: a banked fire, a warming hearth rather than a consuming rush.

He made no move to touch his belt. That was for Jessamine to decide, if and when she wished to see him. Her steps set the only pace that he would follow. Corvo wouldn't so much as adjust himself for some relief unless Jessamine ordered his hands there or did it herself.

(And oh, her _hands,_ hesitant but determined, resting their weight so sweetly, trustingly on his shoulders. Nimble fingers popping open his buttons one by one, granting him a blessed respite from the tight confines. His growing erection throbbed in time with his pulse, now, slowly filling the front of his trousers into a bulge. Would she pull the leather through the belt buckle slowly, or would she yank impatiently at the fabric covering his thighs, wanting it gone?)

Jessamine looked her fill of him. She seemed to blink slowly, like she didn't want to miss a single second. She did not seem put off by how tightly the fabric stretched over his groin: her pink tongue darted out to wet her lower lip, and her gaze spread a melting, tingling awareness over his skin.

Warm palms slid down his arms, and Jessamine glanced at him. Her eyes were so very blue, bright with an urgent curiosity. Her slim fingers gripped his wrists. She took his hands and placed them on her hips.

Through the night dress, she was almost shockingly warm. Even by the intimate candlelight, the expensive fabric had made her look somehow remote, unreachable. But now, placed there by her own hands, his palms rested firmly on the swell of her waist. 

The thump of his pulse in his ears nearly deafened him, a clamor of mingled alarm and amazement. His _hands_ were on the Empress' waist. He could feel the rhythm of her breathing. And Jessamine was squirming up into his touch, pushing her softly padded hips into his hold, and murmured, more to herself than to him, "That feels nice."

A small ache cracked open in Corvo's chest. They had hardly done anything, and yet she was already smiling at him, astonished and delighted at the simple touch of his hands.

Her bony shin bumped into his thigh. She hooked her knee over his, almost sitting in his lap. And she kissed him, and kissed him, until Corvo thought he might drown from it. 

She swayed towards him until the fabric of her nightgown brushed his bare skin. Jessamine held on to his arms, steadying herself as though she felt dizzy, and kissed him with a new, clumsy fervor. Her lips caught the corner of his mouth, smeared damply down his chin. 

Even her lips felt fever-hot, insistent and almost demanding. There was a new pull, a new longing in the wet slide of her mouth against his. Corvo's pulse tripped and stuttered. Surely his heart hadn't always felt this big, a swelling restlessness against his ribs. Against his lips, Jessamine let out a stuttering sigh, almost a moan. Her weight tipped against him, dizzily, and he dared to hold her a bit tighter, steadying her by the yielding softness at her waist. 

At last she drew back. A few of the candles had gone out, the flames drowned in their own melted wax. Jessamine's eyes seemed darker for it, reflecting the candlelight like a star-dotted sky. 

Corvo caught his breath and let her look at him. Surely she felt, across the few candlelit inches between them, how fast his heart raced. Her gaze skittered across his face, searching. 

She bit her lip, then exhaled, decisive: whatever she'd been looking for, she appeared to have found it. Her nightgown had gotten stuck between them; she pulled the fabric free and rose to her knees.

A chilled rush caught hold of Corvo, dragged him up from the warm depths of her kisses. Perhaps she wished to retreat to the far side of the mattress—Corvo's hands sprang away from her hips as if burned. 

The nightgown gathered in ruffles around her waist. He saw flash of a pale thigh, then looked determinedly over her shoulder instead. He tried to lean back, but at some point she had come to sit almost in his lap, one leg resting heavily on his—

Jessamine didn't get up. She didn't even scoot away. She bowed her head, and the golden pin glinted in her hair as she gripped the ruffled back of her collar. In a rush of white fabric, she pulled the nightgown over her head.

* * *

By some suspended law of gravity, the hairpin didn't fall out.

Jessamine emerged flushed and slightly rumpled from her swathes of fabric. Sweat-damp strands of hair had tangled around her ears, but the golden ornament held.

The nightgown was embroidered along the hem. The delicate stitching slid precariously lower down her chest. Her shoulders were bared to the candlelight, hunching lightly around the fragile shadowed valleys of her collarbones—

But Jessamine hadn't pulled her arms free yet. She hugged the gown to her chest and stared at him with wide eyes, momentarily disquieted by her own boldness.

There was a hum in Corvo's bones, like he'd reached into a whale oil lamp and received one of those stinging shocks. He noticed, with the odd sharp detail that usually came to him in the rush of battle, that the embroidery formed a pattern of small white swans. 

At last he managed to yank his gaze away. Cheeks burning even after that brief glance, he looked determinedly up, at a point near the candlelit ceiling.

Jessamine laughed, sputtering, the sound surprised out of her and dispelling some of her tension. "You can look," she said, a little breathless. "I don't mind. I think you shall have to, before this night is over."

Corvo blinked. His heart throbbed in his belly and palms, an insistent slow drum. Her words echoed like she'd shouted them, drowning out the disjointed wisps of his thoughts.

But if he had any say in the matter, Jessamine would not spend a single second of this night feeling like a piece of cattle being appraised. So he compromised by looking into her eyes instead of at her forehead. 

Jessamine smiled. "So courteous," she said, quietly. 

Emboldened, she pulled her hands free. In her lap, the nightgown sunk into a white, shadowed heap. 

It must've been prepared for wearing mere hours ago. The ruffles were still stiff enough to hold it up. The slipping fabric exposed only the top of Jessamine's breasts, soft pale swells of flesh that weren't all that scandalous yet, considering the colorful whirl of fashions that Corvo had seen at court... or in Karnaca, for that matter...

Across the white fabric, Jessamine reached for him. The nightgown quivered but didn't slip, and he felt a bizarre urge to thank her maidservants for their vigorous ironing.

There was no way she couldn't see the straining bulge of his cock, pressing against its confines with growing insistence. But she still took ahold of his belt and hooked a fingertip into the metal buckle.

A deep pink blush stained her cheeks. She sucked on her lower lip, a single nervous gesture, but she met his eyes with streamlined determination. Jessamine tugged on his trousers and offered, quite boldly, "Just to make us even?"

Corvo's whole body had stilled when Jessamine had pulled off her nightgown, scarcely daring to draw breath. Now he exhaled, winded, in nervous relief. 

Earlier, everything in him had rebelled to see her still and waiting on her back. But this... this felt righter. This was _her,_ his Empress, inquisitive and nervous and brave. Her decision, only ever hers, which pieces of clothing would end up on the floor beside the bed. Her pace was the only gait he wished to follow.

 _'Go ahead,'_ Corvo signed: one finger pointed, then his wrist turned gracefully, and at last he trapped his thumb between his index and middle fingers. 

He saw his own right hand through a haze, as though a sudden downpour had drenched the summer-hot gardens and sent thick fog drifting through the bedroom. Her eyes were mesmerizing. The candlelight caught in her pupils, blown wider than usual from the dim light and the hot stir of her blood. He would not dishonor her courage by asking if she was sure. 

The buckle clinked when Jessamine opened his belt. Her fingers didn't seem to know quite what they wanted. They were nimble one moment as they popped open a few buttons, but unsteady the next as she pulled uselessly on his trousers and seemed to forget that he was still sitting down.

Blood thumped in Corvo's ears. Was it desire or fear that set her hands trembling? He would sit there with her for the rest of the night, the discarded dress barely preserving her modesty, and not move a single inch if that was what she wished—

And now he _was_ moving, somehow, lifting his hips to help her undress him. Between their four shaking hands, they managed to get the trousers off. There was a last moment of reprieve when Corvo peeled off his underwear and dropped the whole pile off the side of the bed. Then he was bared to her gaze.

His hands nearly betrayed him. Corvo hastily flattened his palms against his thighs to thwart the automatic impulse to cover himself. 

He felt almost a little shamed, suddenly, by his obvious and fervent desire for her. They hadn't done more than kissing, and already his erection was jutting up eagerly from the trimmed thatch of hair between his thighs.

It wasn't that Jessamine looked coldly unruffled—her mussed hair and glittering eyes in her flushed, glowing face were quite telling. But Corvo hoped that she knew that just because his longing was more obvious than hers did not mean she had to... _do_ anything.

At first her gaze skittered shyly, like a flat stone thrown to bounce across a still pond. But then she looked properly, inhaled a visible slow breath and took her time.

Her eyes _lingered._ Impossibly, her cheeks glowed even more, staining a slow and heartfelt red. Corvo sucked in a shallow lungful of air. The Empress' full attention settled on him, heavy like a rich garment across his shoulders.

Jessamine blinked slowly. The dark sweep of her lashes shadowed her cheeks. Her gaze swept over the dusky pink of his erect penis, the trimmed curls of hair between his thickly muscled thighs.

Corvo had spent years by Jessamine's side—watching, guarding, a silent shadow. After her father's death, perhaps it was him who could read her best. Where members of Parliament might see only polite blankness, Corvo could decipher the mildest furrow of her brow.

But just then, with the rabbit-fast thrum of his pulse in his ears, Jessamine's face seemed as inscrutable to him as it must've been to the youngest servants. He couldn't tell at all what she thought, whether she was anxious or felt a burgeoning confidence. 

A brief glance up to meet his eyes, her fingers hovering questioningly: that was all the warning Corvo got. From somewhere he scraped together the presence of mind for a half-nod, half-shrug, a nervous gesture, hands raising to sign—there was no debt to be paid, no promise to uphold, just because they'd come this far did not mean they had to... had to...

Jessamine touched him. Her fingertips were chilled, a sudden shock against the sensitive skin of his cock. Jessamine sucked on her lower lip and brushed a light touch up his length, barely enough to be felt.

"Oh!" she said, surprised. Her lip popped out of her mouth again, blood-flushed and swollen. "Your skin is so soft!"

Corvo couldn't help it—he laughed, a near-silent huff of breath. It freed his lungs to draw in air again, loosening the constricting bands around his ribs, and Jessamine—

Jessamine smiled at him still, mercifully unoffended though she sent him a mock-stern look. "Well, I didn't _know,"_ she said.

Her other hand kind of... patted up his thigh, unsure how to touch him yet. His wiry thatch of pubic hair seemed to fascinate her. She scratched gently through it, surprised, perhaps, that in this his sex was not so very different from her own.

And Corvo discovered another glaring gap in his careful plans. The journey from Dunwall had afforded him a few hours to himself—so why had he not had the presence of mind to take his pleasure from his own hand? Here he was, swollen and throbbing under her gaze, so hungry for her that it had to be obvious even in her inexperience...

Just now, as Jessamine conducted her explorations, her self-consciousness was banked. These moments were as fragile as spun glass. Corvo scarcely dared to breathe too deeply for fear of startling her. If he'd found release before climbing up onto her balcony, he would've been calmer now, more focused.

Well, it was too late now to do anything about it. He couldn't help the way his pelvic muscles contracted and the already damp head of his cock brushed the inside of her wrist. But he would hold as still as he could, for however long she wished.

Although... Jessamine didn't look very perturbed. Once again her lip was caught between her teeth. Determined to overcome her shyness, she curled her fingers around his shaft and gave him a slow stroke from base to tip.

Goosebumps prickled all across his shoulders. Corvo exhaled roughly, a reaction he couldn't quite bite back. Then her palm settled in the middle of his chest. 

Her eyes were captured starlight, shining with a deep and abiding hunger. Dazed, Corvo went where she pushed him, until he lay where she had before, sprawled out on the pristine white sheets with his head just brushing the pillows.

For a moment Jessamine just looked, almost reverent, feasting her eyes on the sight of him. Her next breath rushed out in a shaky sigh.

She moved decisively and all at once. She scooted close, their bare thighs touching, and discarded the nightgown off the side of the bed, baring herself to him.

Jessamine had had the chance to look at him first. She wasn't pliantly offering herself. He no longer loomed over her narrow-shouldered form. Lying below her rang straight down to his bones with _rightness._ It was easier, this time, to allow himself one single glance. 

Candlelight painted golden shadows all over her. Her body was supple and lean, her breasts plump and small, with dark pink nipples that pebbled slightly in the breeze from the window.

Jessamine's lips quirked, fond and exasperated: even now, though she'd plainly bared herself to his gaze, he couldn't bring himself to stare as she had. She leaned over him. The mattress tilted as she steadied herself with a hand by his hip and clambered on top of him.

Corvo looked up at her, and words fled him entirely. It was one of those moments where he couldn't have found his voice even if his tongue had been functional. His fingers were silent, nerveless on the bedding. He could not remember the sign for 'beautiful'.

Her breasts swayed, full and soft-looking. Corvo's fingers clenched around fabric—how he longed to touch, welcome the swells of delicate flesh into his cupped hands and find out what she liked, whether she might enjoy a brush of his calluses down the pale sides of her breasts or what noise she would make if he rolled a nipple under his thumb—

And, oh. Corvo closed his teeth around the inside of his cheek. His cock bobbed helplessly, straining hard and damp against his stomach. She sat astride him, now, and he _felt_ her there—she was heavy atop him, a solid warm weight—and her vulva pressed lightly against him, a wet, incredible softness, swollen folds of skin pressing a damp trail against his thigh.

A tremor shook him. His pulse beat insistently in the engorged head of his penis. By the Void, she was exquisite, looking down at him with a doubtful furrow between her eyebrows, and Corvo sucked in a laborious breath and pressed his palms flat to the bed so he wouldn't give in to the temptation of touching.

Unexpectedly, Jessamine snorted. She was all awkward limbs and joints, unused to having another body so close, and tapped a finger against his thigh. "Is this odd?" she said, a nervous laugh in her voice. "I feel like it is. The books never mentioned it'd be odd."

That was baffling enough that some of Corvo's tattered senses returned to him. _'Books?'_ he repeated. But only one shaking hand obeyed his commands, so he just made half of the sign for reading instead, flicking two fingers down an invisible page.

"Well, yes," Jessamine said with a mildly raised eyebrow, like it was obvious. "I had to find some sources to teach me the basic theory. —Don't _laugh,"_ she added, suddenly wary.

Corvo stared up at her, poleaxed. Laughing could not have been further from his mind. 

He imagined the Empress in some unsavory corners of the library, late in the evening, head bent low over a book. Her finger gliding along the page as she read, her other hand perhaps raised to her mouth in distant embarrassment, her eyes shining and fascinated above her blushing cheeks...

Perhaps, in those dustier corners of the library, they had just barely missed each other. He had looked up the sign for virginity and she had conducted her own research, and they'd been like ships passing in the night.

Jessamine shifted atop him. She was speaking again, her voice came to him from a great distance, but he could not make out the words. By the Outsider and whatever else dwelled in the furthest reaches of the Void—her sex _rubbed_ against his thigh, and his hands were like molten steel fused to the bed, he ached physically to reach out and touch, hold, caress, put his shaking fingers wherever she might like them and let her take her pleasure from him...

 _"Cor_ vo," Jessamine repeated, patiently. "I said, is it strange that you can feel my— my..."

Sweat had beaded in the creases of his palms. A little self-conscious, Corvo wiped them against the sheets and signed, _'It's alright. I don't mind.'_ If he was to pass this night with his wits scattered to the wind, the least he could do was answer when she asked him a direct question. _'You can sit however you wish.'_

That earned him another smile, delighted and impish. "Well, good," Jessamine said, a little breathless, and reached for him again.

It was entirely possible Corvo was going to have that stroke any moment now. The Empress of the Isles sat astride his thighs, naked except for the golden ornamental pin that still glittered in her hair. Her blush had spread down her chest. In the candlelight she glowed, her flanks rising with deep breaths, a sheen of sweat collecting in the valley between her breasts.

And she had her fingers around his cock again. Bolder, now, squeezing experimentally—her gaze was like a physical touch of its own, hot-edged and heavy-lidded. Her grip slid back his foreskin completely, exposing the pink, swollen head. 

Jessamine's tongue darted out to wet her lower lip. Her eyes came up to meet his. "Does that hurt?"

It took him a moment to parse the question. By the time he shook his head, she'd already begun to smile shyly, almost a smirk, reading the answer in his face.

Jessamine's hold on him was snug, growing slicker as liquid beaded at the tip of his penis. Corvo focused on his breathing, in and out, working his lungs around deep inhales. A hot soreness pulled in his belly, not unlike a sprained muscle that needed to be stretched.

With a decisive nod, Jessamine released him, flexing her fingers as though to commit the lingering feel of him to memory. "Alright," she said, and peered down at him with a guarded sort of optimism. "I've read enough to know that this part should be good for you too."

She scooted upwards. Corvo blinked slowly, still catching up—did she think that she was the only one who'd been enjoying things? Didn't she know that every minute of this, every candlelit second, was a precious gift, unbearably fragile in his careful, cupped hands?

The mattress swayed under them at her resettling weight. One hand steadied herself against the mattress, the other closed around his hip, bidding him stay where he was, he thought, and then—

Then she took hold of his cock again and hunched over and pressed her sex to his, damp curly black hair and folds of skin, pliable and swollen with arousal and _hot,_ so hot that it scorched his nerve endings into a sparking, writhing mess.

Corvo's hands balled into white-knuckled fists. The sheets crinkled in his desperate grip. Jessamine slid his penis down the cleft of her sex, searching, a slick molten touch that gripped him by the raw bundle of nerves low in his spine and pulled, pulled...

She tried to sink down on him. He felt her entrance strain against the engorged head of his cock. Jessamine winced, and hissed in a quick breath. The fluttering muscle struggled to accommodate him, and a whimper escaped her, tense and pained—

That sound was like a dousing of cold water. It settled behind his ribs, startling and sore like a fresh bruise. Corvo sat up so fast he nearly knocked their heads together. 

He pushed her out of his lap. Jessamine yelped as she was suddenly deposited on the mattress. Corvo looked her over with frantic concern, staring, for the moment, unabashedly at her crotch—there was no blood he could see, and he hadn't felt anything tear, but that didn't mean she wasn't hurt. 

_Was_ she hurt? What a fool he was, allowing himself to be overcome by her sweet, emboldened curiosity and the gift of her tentative touches. His fault, certainly: he shouldn't have let her clamber on top of him so soon—

"I'm sorry," Jessamine said quickly. "I don't know what's..."

And _why_ was she apologizing? Her shoulders hunched inward. She looked startled and contrite, an unhappy, shaky tilt to her mouth. For an unguarded second, her eyes pressed shut.

Corvo touched her arm. Under his palm, her skin prickled into goosebumps. Genuinely worried now, he signed a quick, _'It's alright'_ with his free hand. 

She pressed her lips into a tight line and tried to fix him with a stern look, impatient at being placated. But she couldn't seem to meet his eyes. Her gaze skittered down and away, and her throat worked as she swallowed hard, choking down whatever she might've said. 

And in any other situation, Corvo would never have taken the liberty, but— but she _shook_ under his touch, a faint skittish tremor, and it only took a light pull on her arm for her to sway towards him.

Holding her was... strange. He'd half expected her to come stiff and dignified into his cautious embrace. But Jessamine leaned against him with a sigh of palpable relief. Her head came to rest on his shoulder. He could feel her breaths, unsteady but settling, against the sensitive hollow above his clavicle. Her breasts pressed against his chest, a plump softness against hard muscle.

Corvo imagined he felt the faintest flutter of her eyelashes against his shoulder. He hardly dared to breathe, and held her as lightly as he could.

"I'm sorry," Jessamine said again—uncharacteristic, for her, to apologize more than once for the same perceived mis-step. "I can do it right, if you'll let me try again."

And, alright, Corvo wanted to soothe a hand down her back and give her another moment to collect herself. But he also could not let that stand. He frowned to himself, once again impatient with his shortcomings: if he'd been able to speak, he could've kept holding her.

She gave him a wary look when he withdrew. Two hectic spots of color on her cheeks betrayed her shame. Corvo wasted no time signing to her: ' _You did nothing wrong. It's not uncommon—'_

"That it hurts?" Jessamine interrupted, with a small, tense smile. Another oddity, a mark of how frazzled she felt: she never spoke over him, into the silences filled by his hands. "I know that. I can—"

But she did subside when Corvo forestalled her with a raised palm. _'It's not uncommon that it takes time.'_

There was a short pause. They looked at each other, and then Jessamine repeated, "Time," distinctly unimpressed.

That had definitely sounded more reassuring in his head. Corvo gave a half-shrug, but nodded. Jessamine's eyebrow twitched the same way it did in Parliament when some issue was taking far too long to resolve because a new feud had sprung up between her councilmen...

(And, great. Corvo sighed. Now he would likely never again behold that expression without being reminded of this night, sacred and yet _happening_ against all odds under the Fugue night sky.)

At least she sat up straighter, surer of herself than she had been, directing a vague scowl at her hands in her lap. "You needn't spare my dignity just because of my inexperience," she said. "I know I'm new to this, and I would assume that makes it far more likely that the fault is mine..."

 _'No,'_ Corvo signed, firmly. He ducked his head until their eyes met. _'You bade me come here as your teacher, did you not? Then trust me on this: You have done nothing wrong.'_

Jessamine inclined her head, seeming to cede his point, but she had that argumentative tilt to her jaw that Corvo knew well. "Perhaps not on purpose," she said, "but the books were very clear. The women experienced some discomfort, but they were able to..."

Corvo hadn't thought he would ever cultivate a dark and vulgar-worded resentment towards Gristol authors of certain slippery literature, and yet here he was. The thought that Jessamine felt— inadequate, humiliated by an imaginary shortcoming... it tore at him, a painful hook buried in his chest. 

This was not a question of _ability._ It was good that Jessamine had educated herself as best as she could. But— expecting to take him inside of her within barely half an hour since they'd begun kissing, on her first time, without any... preparation...

He blushed hotly. And there was his answer, wasn't it? If he had any say in it, Jessamine would not experience any sort of discomfort, let alone pain, at all. If she wished it, he would help her get ready for the intrusion with his fingers and his lips until she was dizzy with pleasure and all thoughts of failure had fled from her mind...

 _'The books embellish the act,'_ Corvo signed. _'There is truly no need to rush, no matter what you have read.'_

Jessamine eyed him suspiciously. Corvo could tell she didn't quite believe him yet, but at least the unhappy wrinkle of her brow was smoothing out as some of the defensiveness eased.

"Well, alright," she allowed at last. She blew out a sigh and brushed sweat-damp strands of hair out of her face. "So what do we do?"

Corvo's hands seemed to move on their own: he certainly hadn't known what he was going to sign as his fingers wrapped around the gestures. But somehow he found himself offering the words to her anyway: _'May I help you relax?'_

Jessamine drew her much abused lip between her teeth again, as though to help herself think. She looked curiously at the redness in his cheeks. Corvo had the sudden chilling thought that perhaps she did not know what he meant—

But then she released her lip and said, quite decisively, "Yes."

* * *

The only part that was left of Corvo's tongue was a little stub at the back of his mouth. As such, his sense of taste was not what it had once been. Flavors took a while to register, and he was often left with an odd almost-taste until he swallowed.

Jessamine's skin was damp and cool under the line of careful kisses he trailed down her breastbone. The salty flavor of her sweat would take a while to register yet, but he could smell her, a trace of perfume and a deep, velvety feminine musk that rose from between her legs.

Her hands were tight and firm on Corvo's shoulders. She had almost pushed his head to her chest: he'd kissed her lips and then her jaw and he'd just been inching his way down her neck when she, anticipating where this journey would lead, had arched up into him and her breasts had pressed to his collarbones.

They were soft and plump, her nipples warm kernels of skin that all but begged for his touch. He brushed his thumb along one, gently, mindful of his calluses. Jessamine hissed in a breath: she was beautifully responsive, shifting restlessly under him, almost unselfconscious in the decisive grip she had on his shoulders. He could feel her heartbeat against the sensitive skin of his lips, pounding deep and fast at his touch.

There, at the back of his mouth, finally a taste of Jessamine's skin. His mouth watered. He would happily spend all night there if Jessamine wished it. He would kiss her nipples until they were hot and damp under his mouth and run his fingers along the paper thin skin of her breasts until he'd found every place that made her gasp...

"That feels nice," Jessamine said, a little breathless. The vibration of her voice hummed through them both.

He would've spent more time there, but Jessamine's eyes were wide and dark now, like she half-feared he'd suddenly get up and leave. She squirmed a little, rubbing one heel against the mattress. Her fingers pressed into the thick muscles that covered his shoulders, not exactly pushing, but with a certain sense of urgency.

Corvo knew where she wanted him. If she wished him to abandon her breasts in favor of more intimate places, then he would. But all he had to go on was the urgent flexing weight of her hands. For this he required a bit more direction.

Corvo pulled his head away, though she tried to hold him. He secretly thrilled to feel her fingers snag briefly in his hair. _'Where may I touch you?'_

Jessamine smiled, almost laughed really, surprised by the question. "Anywhere," she said. Her voice was thick, urgent. "I mean, anywhere you like."

Corvo watched her, allowed a second to pass in silence. But no startled dismay widened her eyes at her own boldness. Breathless and nervous though she was, her gaze sparked warm and inviting. The heated charge that crackled between them had not pushed her into extending a premature offer.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was a good time to quiet that ever-present fretful voice at the back of his mind. She trusted him, and the least he could do was extend her the same courtesy. 

Corvo gently smoothed his hands down her flanks. The plush fullness of her curves moved in time with her breath. Her skin was so soft. By the Void, how was her skin so _soft?_ The roundness at her hips and belly pinched a bit, and Corvo found it nothing but endearing. He would have liked to stroke a thumb over the subcutaneous fat, but he kept his hands moving: Jessamine had never given any indication of being self-conscious about the comfortable cushion of weight around her middle, but now was not the time to test her confidence.

His hands came to rest on her thighs. Fine hair rasped against his palms. Against her milky white complexion, his fingers looked very dark. A small part of him still felt uncouth for touching her so brazenly—for daring to even sink his weight into her expensive mattress.

A long, unhurried courtship should have preceded this night, just like in the stories. Jessamine deserved everything, the romance and quiet splendor in the old poems and songs... she should've found someone whose palms weren't hardened by calluses. Who could walk proudly beside her in court, instead of four steps behind and one to the left.

But she had chosen _him._ Kept choosing him, even, for her first and second kisses and every one thereafter, and it was his name that sat atop her proposal, written in smooth, determined calligraphy, sealing her hopes with a press of her own signet to the hot wax.

Jessamine looked at him. Her gaze flickered across his face, searching: could she sense his disquiet, that niggling doubt that would likely never go away for good, no matter what they did tonight?

Perhaps she could. "Don't stop," she said to him, decisively, and her eyes were so blue and fierce, determined and unafraid. 

She winced as the two words fell heavily between them, almost a command. Perhaps she'd meant to speak more softly, like the alluringly chaste ladies from her books. The backs of her knuckles brushed down his cheek, rueful, but Corvo caught her hand, gently unbent the curled fingers and pressed a kiss into her palm. 

How could she know how it calmed him, settling over him like a hot, smothering blanket, when she told him what she wished him to do? She was not supposed to stifle herself under a shroud of feminine delicacy. By nature, her spirit burned bright and clear, and Corvo only ever wished for Jessamine to be what she was—no modestly guttering flame, but a hearth fire, steadfast and strong.

By their joined hands, Jessamine tugged him close. Her thighs parted for him. It was like the inevitable pull of gravity: he could no more resist her coaxing than stop a thrown stone from falling. 

Her stomach rose softly under his palm with her breaths. How had his hand come to rest on her belly? Her fingers circled his wrist, directing, and slid his hand down between her legs, and Corvo nearly pulled away— _slow,_ they had to go slow, the very last thing he wanted to do was overwhelm or frighten her...

His thumb brushed the top of her pubic bone. Hair rubbed against his fingertips. She hadn't cut it, and he worried briefly that the trim of his own hair might've unsettled her—what if she thought he found her distasteful? 

But Jessamine's hips hitched up a little, her body moving on its own to get his fingers where she needed them. A deep dark flush suffused her cheeks. She let her legs fall further open. Her eyes were luminous, her lips slack and plumped into a look of perpetual wonder, like even though she'd asked for his touch it still surprised her that he followed her lead.

The smell of her was stronger now, rose up hot and velvety from between her thighs. Corvo's mouth watered. He wanted to kiss her there, put his mouth on her as well as he knew how, explore with his fingers what'd make her moan and coax out more of those delicious little squirms.

And Jessamine just _looked_ at him, and her gaze felt like starlight spilling over his skin, bright and welcoming. Corvo finally dared to lower his eyes.

Jessamine was pink down there too, darker. Her folds were swollen with arousal and glistening wet: so Corvo had been doing something right, at least. They had been... touching for a while, but it was her first time, her very first, and he hadn't expected her to be this visibly excited. 

Tentatively, he cupped one shaking palm around her sex. By the Void, she felt so _hot_ there, almost feverish. Damp hair brushed his wrist, leaving cooling trails of moisture. Corvo finger-combed the curls out of the way. Her clitoris was pink and engorged, peeking out from under its hood.

He touched her, just a short brush of his fingers. The little nub was so damp that it slipped under even that slight pressure and he felt the root move under her skin. Jessamine sucked in a breath. Her hips twitched a little. Her inner labia parted with a slick noise.

Under his questing fingers, her entrance didn't feel as tight as it'd been trying to take in his cock. The thin muscle quivered at his touch, shiny-slick and flexing. He rubbed his thumb beside her pearl, a bit firmer, and was rewarded with an experimental roll of Jessamine's hips that slipped his pressing fingers right over the hardened kernel of flesh.

"Is it...," Jessamine breathed, and trailed off into a small moan. Her voice scratched huskily in her throat. She released his wrist, trusting. "Is everything... in order?"

Oh. She still believed that there might be something anatomically wrong. Corvo nodded quickly—not for a second would he let her believe that she was somehow insufficient. 

With one open hand he signed, _'Everything is fine,'_ and then brought it to his face to sign, impulsively, since he'd been thinking it all night: _'You are beautiful.'_

Jessamine snorted, her little laugh reverberating through them both. Her eyes had sunk half-shut, only a thin ring of blue visible around the blown pupils. _"Corvo,"_ she said, amused and bashful, like she didn't quite believe him.

But her smile was radiant with a shy, simple kind of pride. And Corvo would've gladly spent hours shaping for her more words that would make her smile like that, because her comfort and her budding feminine confidence were... everything.

That Jessamine had found in herself the courage to approach him in the first place, bold and beautiful in her streamlined plan, and disrobed for him, shed the last intimate layer of the nightgown and bared herself to a man's gaze for the first time...

It was humbling. Corvo's chest ached to think of it, his heart squeezing with protective affection. There was nothing about her that he could've ever found wanting.

His world narrowed to her. There was only the hesitant rocking of her hips into his touch, the sticky heat of her sex against his hand. His penis bobbed between his legs, a hot, weighted pull. Precome trickled out intermittently and cooled in the air, but it seemed secondary, unimportant. Even the nocturnal sounds of the countryside fell away.

Jessamine's stomach twitched when he kissed her there, trying not to let his chin brush her skin for fear of beard burn. "Corvo," she whispered. Goosebumps rose on her skin. He didn't think he'd ever heard his name spoken like that, breathed out like a secret.

He ran one hand over her hip, leaning over her with his hair falling into his face. Corvo touched his lips to that little cushion of fat that she carried around her middle. With a fleeting intensity like the streak of a comet across a velvet-dark sky, he wished that he could've dipped his tongue into her navel.

Jessamine squirmed under him. Her breaths went in deep, her belly rising and falling against Corvo's mouth. He tilted his head on purpose, dragging the silky cool texture of his hair across her ribs. She sort of petted the back of his head, a clumsy caress, and said, hoarsely, "That's so nice." 

Corvo smothered a huff of laughter against her stomach and struggled to tamp down his smile. Three times she'd said that, now. It was— flattering, really, that the verbose and well-read Empress fell back on that same simple word. 

He rubbed tentative fingers over her entrance—not dipping in, he didn't want to spook her, just assessing. She felt more pliable there now, the muscle of her vulva relaxing. Jessamine clutched at his shoulders. Her hands trembled as they hadn't when she'd penned her letter, so brave and determined, holding an ornately crafted fountain pen.

By the time he kissed her mound, she'd realized where he was going. She shook under his touch, restless, clutching at him with open yearning. Her legs slid further apart when Corvo scooted down the bed, and she brushed his hair back from his face with a gentle hand, tucking strands behind his ears.

Of course, there was no way he could reach her folds with what remained of his tongue. Back when it'd healed, he had struggled to even stretch it far enough just to reach his alveolar ridge; if only he could make the painful stub do that simple thing, he'd thought, perhaps he could still speak... But all that had earned him was a hot, sinking frustration and a raw ache in his throat.

So he kissed her there instead, touched his lips to the hardened bundle of nerves at her center, scalding hot against his mouth.

"Oh," Jessamine whispered. She had one hand raised to her chest, fingertips just barely resting over her fluttering heartbeat. "Oh, Corvo. I didn't— I never thought..."

She was so very new to this. Corvo shivered. A pull of watchful longing rolled over him like a wave. He wanted to lunge up and embrace her, hold her, cradle her head gently to his chest, yet at the same time clutch at her hips and bury his face between her thighs until she forgot to think.

Hadn't she known that he would want to bring her pleasure in every way? She'd gone from kissing straight to offering herself and lying down for the act. Perhaps she'd read about more in the books, but in her single-minded focus on her virginity, it'd fallen by the wayside. 

Affection cracked open in Corvo's chest, hot and welling over like a tender wound. From him, with him, she could have whatever her heart desired. This night belonged to her.

He mouthed down her cleft, where copious slickness beaded and the thin skin was hot and quivering. A low, protesting noise wrung itself from Jessamine's throat. Her hips tilted, seeking— trying, Corvo knew, to get his supple lips back up to where her clitoris jutted out, a deep pink kernel.

Perhaps, Corvo reflected, it worked in his favor that she had no previous experience with anyone's mouth on her. She would not find his missing tongue lacking. He gave her the softness of his lips where she wanted it, slid his mouth over and around her pearl and pressed wet, sucking kisses over the drawn-back hood.

Jessamine breathed with him, in long gulps of air that almost rose into whimpers. She looked stunned, overcome, her eyes almost black. Slender fingers clung to the sheets, then slid across the fabric, shaking, searching.

Corvo suppressed a smile. He guided one of her hands to his head: she was too polite to reach out on her own, but he would not mind if she wished for a little more control.

Her fingers sank into his hair. Corvo rubbed his thumb over her entrance, lips latching back onto her throbbing clitoris. That earned him a startled, bitten-off moan. Jessamine bucked under him. Her hold tightened, pulling pleasantly—but then she made a wounded broken noise and yanked her hand back.

The sting on his scalp faded quickly; she'd jerked away so fast that she'd torn out a few hairs. She had a tight grip on his upper arms, as though to keep him from fleeing from the bed. "Sorry," Jessamine gasped, her flushed chest heaving as she struggled to get the words out, "oh, no, I'm sorry—"

Bewildered, Corvo stared back. His Serkonan hair was naturally thick and ample. He could stand to lose a few strands. He shook his head once: she had done nothing wrong. Jessamine's frantic gaze flickered across his face, searching, anxious to see if she'd convinced him of her sincerity. He didn't understand what had just happened, and yet her mouth was tight with frustration and a flinching sort of remorse.

Jessamine breathed out. She swallowed hard—chastising herself, perhaps, for making a mistake she should've known to avoid. "I thought," she began, wincing even as she spoke, but the words tumbled out anyway: "I only thought that they must've gripped your hair. When they..." 

She trailed off, but made an awkward, aborted gesture at her own mouth.

For a few heartbeats, Corvo didn't understand. Then it clicked. She was thinking of his injury. 

His thoughts slowed and scattered, baffled. She had... thought about that? But it made sense, now: her clumsy caresses had been confined mostly to his shoulders. She must've decided in advance not to touch his head. And now she was— concerned for him, at one accidental pull of his hair? 

It felt strange to raise his hands with his fingers covered in her slick. He did not know to wipe away the contrition that pulled a frown between her eyebrows and hunched her shoulders. So he just signed the first thing that came to his mind: _'My hair was short then.'_ Shorn, to be precise, to deepen his humiliation, but she didn't need to know that.

"Oh," Jessamine said, momentarily thrown. 

Corvo tried to smile for her. His neck prickled with the familiar cringing embarrassment that always crept up on him when attention was drawn to his shortcoming. But it _was_ sweet of her to be concerned.

 _'Touches to my hair are of no consequence to me,'_ he explained. Well—he _liked_ them, knew that it'd bring him a deep, visceral pleasure to be pushed physically where she wanted him. _'You needn't worry. You will not remind me of that.'_

"Well, if you're sure," Jessamine said, doubtful but backing down. Hesitantly, she reached for him. "So it is alright if I—?"

She put two fingers to his temple, sliding up into his hair. Corvo was briefly tempted to take her hand and kiss it, again. She'd been so shocked at the thought of having hurt him, however inadvertently. 

But spots of hectic color had bloomed on her cheeks, and he had the sense that she was embarrassed by her assumptions. So he just nodded, and dismissed the matter with a half-shrug. He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand in reassurance. She bit her lip, and her fingers flexed, and he let her urge his head back down.

He could taste her, now, in that almost-way that was left to him: with his nose buried in her pubic hair, the smell was so intense that it spread even to his mouth. Her swollen labia tasted salty, a velvety feminine musk that rose dizzily to his head like fine wine.

Jessamine's nails scratched at his scalp. Some unnamed tension had flown out of her limbs: relief, maybe, that her worry had been for naught. Corvo fastened his lips around her pearl and she sighed, the strong tendons in her hips jumping erratically. He still stroked a finger over her entrance. A fresh trickle of fluid dampened his chin as that muscle almost, almost sucked him in. 

"You can," Jessamine breathed, and pulled a little at his hair, "inside, I want you to—"

Goosebumps raced down Corvo's back. She watched him with feverish pink blush rising to her face, her chest heaving with quick breaths. He felt for her vulva again and found her yielding, opening for him.

Carefully he pressed in, hooked just the tip of his index finger into tight, wet heat—but Jessamine's eyebrows crinkled in a frown and with an impatient gasp she rocked down on him, his finger slipping in effortlessly.

She was even hotter inside. Jessamine's teeth dug into her lower lip again, hard enough to whiten the thin skin, eyes nearly shut except for glittering slits. Her sex clenched wetly around him. The swollen nub seemed to pulse against his lips. Jessamine's fingers tightened in his hair, nerveless and trembling.

"That feels...," she murmured, attention turned entirely inward, then licked her lips. Her eyes slid half-open. "More?"

The second finger was a tighter fit. Her entrance stretched around Corvo's knuckles but her inner walls clutched at him greedily, fluttering, welcoming him so sweetly. 

A relieved sigh rushed from her lips, as though it soothed some unnameable ache inside her to be filled thus. She moved her hips, twisted slightly up into the unmoving pressure of his fingers resting inside her, sheathed snugly in molten slickness.

Corvo could not tear his gaze from her face. Her eyes were little more than glittering slits, entirely consumed by the business of feeling. Her palm fit around the back of his head, nails digging faintly into his scalp. 

Her hips squirmed, an undulating roll. She did not seem fully aware that she was moving. All along the sensitive insides of her thighs, the muscles jumped periodically, and at last she clumsily settled one leg over his shoulder. The sole of her foot brushed down his back. 

Corvo shivered all over, and his cock was a near-painful molten weight between his legs but it hardly seemed to matter, now that Jessamine was finally taking what she needed, loosening her core muscles to let her body take over.

He rocked his fingers into her. Her inner muscles squeezed him, and on the next slow thrust she rose to meet him. Sweat beaded on the smooth skin of her belly. In his eagerness, Corvo bumped himself into the chin with his knuckles. 

He felt like a bell being struck, a stringed instrument finally played: his very bones vibrated with a deep hum. On his shoulder, Jessamine's thigh trembled in some last vestige of uncertainty even as she struggled to offer more of herself to his mouth and fingers. 

The candlelight flickered over both of them. It cast warmly glowing shadows across the rumpled sheets. Corvo had done this before, but just now he felt raw and new too, almost fumbling under the heavy, awed look of Jessamine's half-lidded eyes. His heart knocked around in his chest, a sizzling rush speeding through his blood.

It took him a moment to establish a rhythm. He rubbed his lips firmly around her clitoris, firm enough to feel the root move, and curled his fingers into her slick, welcoming heat, trying to angle up, until he felt a spongy texture under his callused fingertip.

Jessamines thigh across his shoulder jerked hard. Her knee almost knocked him in the temple. "Oh," she moaned, the tendons in her neck pulling tight under the strain as she arched and shook, "oh, there, that's—"

Corvo breathed harshly against her mound. He was drowning in the taste of her, in her unguarded, sensual physicality. He gentled his fingers, tried a few shallower thrusts—but Jessamine keened, a high and desperate sound, and pulled on his hair. Her mouth was open, panting in wordless abandon.

He found out that she breathed faster when he slid his fingers gently in and out, but that rubbing over that spot inside her made her _writhe._ Jessamine's legs spread wantonly wide. One foot hung off the bed, her delicate toes flexing. He pressed his mouth to the swollen nub of her clitoris and moved with her, going where her body guided him.

Jessamine's breathy moans grew louder, rose into whimpers. She clutched at his hair and clumsily petted his ear and cupped her palm around the back of his head, nearly shoving him down. His nose pressed painfully against her pubic bone, but he didn't care; he could only hold on and _give,_ almost as starved and frantic for it as she was—

"Don't stop," Jessamine almost sobbed. And Corvo felt it right down to his toes, the raw pleading of her voice, the beckoning, squirming _need_ for him. "Corvo, don't, don't ever— _oh!"_

She peaked hard, almost before Corvo was ready for it. He only just managed to close his lips around her pearl. Jessamine cried out and clenched hard around his fingers, her vagina clamping down and squeezing hotly around him.

The raw rosebud of nerves pulsed against his mouth. She contracted around his fingers, still coming, and that spot inside her had gone hard from the powerful grip of her muscles. He rubbed it again and she shouted, hips jackknifing off the bed, and Corvo felt a hot, viscous surge and his knuckles grew abruptly slicker, wetter, and a drop of thick fluid slid down into his palm.

Jessamine's breaths came in stuttered gasps but she was speaking—"Come here," she managed, as the last surge of tremors shook her, "come here to me," and she pulled him roughly up by the hair.

She didn't seem to mind that his chin was wet with her juices. She kissed him, a hard clash of their mouths that left a muted, blood-hot sting of pain, and sucked the taste of herself from his lips.

After, as though on their own, Corvo's fingers kept flexing at his side in disbelief. They felt chilled, almost pruned from her wetness. Jessamine rested beside him against the pillows, and her head was a gentle tilted weight on his shoulder. The phantom sensation of her clenching around his fingers lingered, and he _felt_ her beside him—but it still seemed so unreal.

Drawn by their candles, a few moths had flown into the room. They crowded around the flames, fluttering their powdery near-soundless wings, casting strange shadows across the bed. Dunwall's chimneys spat so much smoke into the air that moths were few and far between. Did these linger on, puzzled by their strange constellation—a Serkonan soldier sharing a plush embroidered pillow with a young Empress, both of them naked as the day they'd been born?

Jessamine's left hand rested on his chest. Corvo was electrically aware of the contact. Her body was turned towards him, breasts pressing against his upper arm. Their skin stuck slightly together with sweat. He felt the shivers that went through her from time to time, as her breathing calmed and the last few aftershocks plucked at her nerves.

Twice now, she'd tried to reach for him, and twice Corvo had caught her hand. It was true that his erection almost hurt by now, and had wilted slightly at the lack of attention. But he would not have her touch him out of some sense of fairness or obligation. 

(And besides, if she still wished to fully... consummate their agreement— well. Before, Corvo had worried about his libido. That deep, visceral need not to frighten her—it'd gone round and round in his head these past four days. He'd feared it would impede his reactions, and that she might find him wanting at crucial moments.

Now, those thoughts ran quite the opposite way: if she was still concerned with the matter of her virginity, it would be somewhat unwise to allow her to touch him.)

Jessamine exhaled. Her breath puffed damply against his shoulder. He didn't have to look at her to know that her brow would be furrowed in thought; he could almost hear the gears of her mind turning.

"That was...," she began—trying, also for the second time, to put her thoughts into words. She gestured limply with one hand. Her murmur vibrated through her sternum where it was pressed against his arm. "It was..."

Corvo couldn't resist. He smoothed one open hand up the other, running his palm to the tips of his fingers: _'Nice?'_

Jessamine burst into surprised giggles. She swatted gently at his arm and spluttered, "Well, I keep saying that, don't I?", and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. Her laughter was giddy and young, letting out some tension.

Corvo relaxed to hear it. Her hair was mussed, the updo lopsided and as disheveled as he'd ever seen it; her hair felt softer against his naked shoulder than he'd imagined it, in its usual coiffed perfection.

Before tonight, he hadn't let his mind wander far: it'd seemed the height of disrespect, imagining in advance what the Fugue night would bring, and so he had kept a tight hold on his thoughts.

And either way, this was far removed from the fragments that his imagination had churned out in unguarded moments. He certainly had not thought even for a second that they'd be resting together like this, with the Empress unselfconsciously nude beside him, strands of her hair tickling his neck.

Jessamine rolled her temple against his shoulder to look up at him. She squeezed his arm. "I am sorry for pulling you up by the hair, though," she said. Her smile was lopsided and so _warm,_ soft with a lassitude he'd rarely ever seen on her. "Not the best... etiquette for a bed partner, I'm sure."

Corvo nearly rolled his eyes. She had still been concerned about his hair and thought that had hurt him? _'There is no need to apologize. I've had much worse in the training grounds.'_

Jessamine sat up halfway, dislodging her warm comfortable weight from beside him. She fixed him with a searching, narrow-eyed look. "How nice of you," she said flatly, "to compare c-carnal embrace with me to being beaten with blunted swords."

The stutter, Corvo noticed absently, was endearingly minimal: her confidence was ever-growing, unfolding like a young flower bud. Then her words registered. A sudden and hapless panic crested in him: that was not— not at _all_ what he'd meant—

Her mouth twitched from its stern line. Then she muffled an unladylike snort into her palm and laughed again, a melodious delighted peal.

"Relax," she chuckled, and patted consolingly at his shoulder when he stared in disbelief, "oh, Corvo, your _face_ — that was a joke!"

She swallowed the last of her laughter. Almost shyly, she put her hand to his cheek. "I meant to say—it was...," she hesitated one last time, and finally said, "wonderful." 

Jessamine looked at him, and her eyes were luminous and sparkled with mirth and sea-glass blue affection. _"You_ are wonderful."

Blushing didn't show up as much on his darker Serkonan complexion, but Void damn it, Corvo could _feel_ himself turning red. Jessamine's lips parted, and she traced her fingertips over the burn in his cheeks.

Feebly, Corvo fluttered one hand. He _had_ to give the compliment back: it wasn't him who was wonderful, it was her, only ever her, with her trust and her keen responses and the way her body had opened for him so sweetly, her voice rising with lust—

His fingers felt heavy, unwieldy. And how could he ever explain how honored he still felt to be here, secluded in her summer house while fireworks burst across Dunwall's night sky, the first one to hear her sigh with desire, to behold her flushed, determined face as she'd pulled her nightgown over her head?

But Jessamine kissed him. It was barely a brush of lips, damp and warm. She caught his blushing cheeks between gentle palms as though she were holding something precious. And Corvo's thoughts dissolved and blew away like a snuffed candle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited parts of this chapter (yes, the smutty bits) while sitting on the floor at GamesCom, earplugs in because holy God the _noise,_ so I hope you'll forgive me for any remaining typos. I have a bit of a convention hangover now, but I had SUCH a good time. I got my picture taken in Emily's motorized carriage and everything. :D
> 
> Anyway, I am honestly blown away by how many people commented & kudos'd this fic. Thank you so much!!! *uses Blink to hug you all* I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll try to get the next one up sooner. ([Tumblr](http://derryday.tumblr.com), if you'd like to chat.)


	3. Chapter 3

Jessamine's hair came down in a dark, silky flood. The ends unwound themselves from the tight, tucked-in twist they'd been forced into. Black strands swept over her pale shoulder.

She flinched at the pull on her scalp. When her hands rose to take out the last few stubborn pins, her breasts rose too, creamy swells topped with delicate pink nipples. But for the moment, Corvo was more transfixed by the tight, embarrassed line of her mouth. 

She tossed the pins towards the nightstand. A fresh surge of pink stained her cheeks. "I practiced that," she admitted, and combed her fingers through her hair. "In the books, the men always seemed quite fond of long hair..."

Jessamine trailed off. Her awkward half-smile seemed to invite him to laugh: she had planned to impress him with the cascade of her unbound hair, but of course it'd gotten stuck tonight.

It was— baffling, really, that she'd even make such an effort for him. He wanted to kiss her, and smooth gentle fingers over her blush until it faded—he did not care how many pins she wore in her hair or if it came down as smoothly as in the novels.

But Jessamine was already pushing her hair off her shoulder, determined not to let it obstruct her focus, and... and hooking a leg over him, much as she'd done before, and clambering on to him and settling herself atop his thighs.

Well, Corvo thought, once the thrum of blood in his ears faded to a distant roar, he was not made of stone. He could hardly be expected to remain unmoved by her weight settling atop him again, pinning him down.

A shock shot up his spine, like a snap of electricity. He pressed his head back into the pillow and fought for breath. Jessamine was _looking_ at him again, not touching but with her hands hovering right where his erection had pulsed back to full hardness and strained plummy and dark pink against his belly.

She breathed out slowly. Then wrapped her slender fingers around his cock again, and Corvo almost couldn't bear it, the way her gaze slowly dragged over him and up to his face, still a little shy but lingering, appraising, analytical...

"You're so _warm,"_ she said, musing, more to herself than to him.

Time seemed to stretch. It grew deliciously thin before rupturing and jolting him back into his body, like the heavy drip of sweetened syrup from a spoon. Leisurely, Jessamine explored him. She squeezed his shaft and ran her thumb slowly over the taut folds where his foreskin had slid back, then stayed her grip around the head. 

A heated soreness pulled in his belly, not unlike a sprained muscle that needed to be stretched. Corvo's pelvic muscles contracted involuntarily. But Jessamine didn't let go, gently twisting her hold, snug and growing slicker, and Corvo wrenched his gaze away to stare blindly up at the ceiling as his pulse beat low as a war drum in his belly and his penis pulsed out a few more beads of liquid.

She smeared her thumb over the wet tip. Corvo hitched an unsteady gasp of air into his protesting lungs. Jessamine said, meditatively, "Do you think this is strange?"

For a terrifying moment Corvo thought she meant his cock, and had a swooping déjà vu to when she'd asked him if all was in order with her sex. 

But Jessamine looked at him, calm and curious, as if she weren't holding the root of his penis in her slim hand. "Just yesterday," she explained, "we were at the Tower and you were telling me about Karnacan street food..."

Corvo's thoughts churned slow and laborious, a creaky and out of commission water wheel struggling through a tumultuous river. Was that— a hint? She'd tilted her head at him, inquiring, and didn't look distressed, but... 

Corvo's hands suddenly didn't feel so limp anymore. With great effort, he signed, _'We could stop. Any time you wish, we can cease our—,'_ he hesitated, _'activities, and talk more of my home town.'_

"Corvo," Jessamine said, fond and a little chiding. Her hold squeezed him, reprimanding, and Corvo dug his heels into the mattress and fought not to pant at her like some rabid dog.  
"Stop acting as though you are an imposition on my feminine sensibilities."

He huffed. It wasn't that. He remembered quite well that it was _her_ who had approached _him_ , who had extended this wildly unusual invitation. It was only... only... 

He did not want to miss any of her subtle signals—a small frown or a tightening of her shoulders. He was well aware that she did not expect him to read her mind, but... he wanted to make this good for her. He _needed_ her to feel safe and comfortable.

Jessamine's gaze held his. "I promised you I'd tell you if I do not like something," she said. For a moment Corvo wondered if perhaps she could read _his_ mind. "Do you take me for an oath breaker?"

With a long sigh, Corvo shook his head. His hands rose—but Jessamine wasn't finished. She touched her fingertips to his jaw, right where he could feel the beginnings of stubble growing in, and ran her thumb slowly over his cheekbone.

"I want you here, in my bed," she said plainly. "Do you want me?"

And it went through Corvo in a hot surge, a sudden cleansing simplicity that absolved him from some of the tangled doubts watchful concern.

There was really only one possible answer. He placed his hands on her thighs, not holding, just resting, felt her strong muscles and the padding of fat over them and her sweat-chilled skin under his palms. He nodded.

This time, even through the heart-pounding burn of desire, he felt the difference. Her folds were plump from their lovemaking, blood-swollen and _wet_ , she was still so wet for him, her body reaffirming what her bold, lust-darkened eyes had already said: she wanted this.

This time the muscle of her vagina was softened, supple. Her entrance stretched around him, the thin skin a fragile trembling membrane against the purpled swollen tip of his penis.

Corvo's hands were balled so tightly in the sheets that his knuckles hurt and the expensive fabric creaked dryly in protest. A slow, sucking slide, controlled by her weight atop of him...

She hissed out her breath. Her eyes dipped shut into a frown. A wet, hot pulse surged around the head of his cock, tight, tight—

Jessamine gripped his wrist before he could reach out to her. "Don't, I'm fine," she said, breathless. "It hurts differently, it's..."

She bit her lip and squirmed. He felt himself slide deeper, snugly but surely, and there was nothing for him to do but let her do as she pleased, feel the urgent throb of his pulse ricochet through his veins and shake helplessly.

"It doesn't really hurt at all, it's..." She broke off, her eyes drooping shut, cataloguing the new sensation.

She squirmed again and steadied herself with her hand on his hip and slid down, until she was speared fully on him and sat astride his lips. Her mound was pressed to him. He felt the warm scratch of her pubic hair against his.

"It's _good."_ Her voice shook. So did her free hand and she pressed it gently to her abdomen as though she could not believe he was inside her, that she held a man inside of her for the first time.

The heat in his loins had been so contained, leashed by steely resolve. But just then a small string holding it snapped. Corvo pressed his head hard into the pillows and squeezed his eyes shut until he saw sparking darkness and groaned, his voice cracking in surrender.

Jessamine's sex fluttered around him, a shivery nervous clench. Automatically, he smoothed his thumbs over her hipbones: if she was scared, or suddenly decided that she didn't like it, he would help her move off of him even though it took him a good long moment to pry his eyes open...

"Oh, _Corvo,"_ Jessamine whispered. His name was barely more than a hushed breath of sound on her lips.

A lump rose in his throat, hot and aching. Here she was, gazing down at him like he had done something marvelous, her eyes liquid-dark with wonder, as though this moment belonged to him as much as it did to her— 

Once again, Jessamine touched his cheek. Her palm slid around his jaw in a firm caress. "It's alright," she said, still softly. "You are so good to me. It's alright now. You don't have to hold on so tight."

His head dropped back into the pillows. What was it about her voice, her words, that undid him so? But undone was what he felt, unraveled at the seams, the tension in him gone supple and fizzing like sparkling wine.

Jessamine leaned far, far over to get to him. Her hair dropped onto his shoulder in a silky pool, and the supple weight of her breasts just barely brushed his chest. She kissed him, with her hand still on his cheek, tilting his face up: a brush of her lips, short and sweet, her breath on his face. 

Then she leaned back and began to move.

Candlelight danced over them. Against her paler skin, his hands were golden, bronzed. With her hair unbound, Jessamine looked younger. A few strands slipped over her shoulder. Corvo ran the ends through his shaking fingers. It was like he'd been— opened, somehow, made raw and new, with every nerve ending in his fingertips delighting even in the simple texture of her hair.

Jessamine's eyes were almost shut, dark glittering slits. She rocked a little, getting used to the weight and pressure inside, thicker and reaching deeper than his fingers had, a puzzle piece sliding into place.

The base of Corvo's spine was made of molten steel, blindingly hot and malleable under her shifting weight. For a moment there, when she'd slid down, he'd felt the snap-crackle of distant release race towards him, and that edge was only just sinking away, a tide receding. It wouldn't do to spill himself inside her at barely a touch, but Outsider's eyes, she was beautiful.

Her vagina held him in tight, slick, pulsing heat. The insides of her thighs were clamped securely around his hips. She rocked herself in his lap, her inner muscles clenching around him in a slow pulse. She undulated her hips, learning how she might shift him inside of her and get the plump head of his cock right where she wanted it.

And oh, by the Void, her _face._ Corvo thought he could've happily looked at her forever. The delicate skin over her cheekbones looked raw with heat. Her lips were kiss-swollen and plump, parted into a sweet 'o' of desire as another sigh shuddered out of her and her weight drove Corvo's hips into the mattress.

He almost held his breath. A small frown of meditative, blissful focus sat between her eyebrows, and Corvo's fingers ached to touch that little line, brush the gentlest of caresses down her pinkened cheeks.

He had touched and been touched tonight, and his hands was the same, broad and strong. But he felt oddly shy, being allowed to see her like this, and so he only stroked the backs of his knuckles down her thigh. 

At his touch, Jessamine hunched forward and opened her eyes, and looked at him with a kind of hushed slowly dawning joy. "Corvo," she said. From her trembling lips, his name sounded like a prayer, or a benediction. "You're, you're so _good._ I never knew it'd..."

She brushed his cheek again. How was it possible that her fingers shook with tenderness? She rubbed her fingers along his slightly stubbled jaw, coaxing, cradling his jugular safely in her palm.

"Look at you," Jessamine whispered, shaping the words more than saying them aloud. Her eyes raked over him. It was like being submerged in warm, flowing water, weightless and welcoming. "You are beautiful."

That... wasn't quite right—Jessamine was the beautiful one, the one whose sight stopped Corvo's breath, and surely it was important that he told her that... 

But the fragments of his thoughts scattered, and blew away soundlessly like seeds in the wind. The big, powerful muscles in her thighs squeezed around his hips. There was no nervous pinch to her smile—only a warm, feminine satisfaction as she looked down at him, a benevolent conqueror. And some chilled worried thing in his soul finally gave in, rolled belly-up and basked in the warm sunbeam of her praise.

Jessamine snatched his half-numbed fingers with her own and put them on her waist. "Hold me," she said, and Corvo did.

She'd been so heavy in his lap, and Corvo's arms so nerveless, that her weight had seemed immovable. It was easy, now, to help her lift herself and sink back down. Jessamine hissed in a breath through her teeth and braced a hand on his shoulder. Her breasts rose with her frantic breathing.

Somewhere, dimly, Corvo was aware that he was struggling for air with every breath. His nerves sang like plucked strings from how good it felt, how _right,_ to lay prone under her. There was nothing but the slick pull of her stretched entrance on his cock, the welcoming glorious heat and pressure inside, so intense around the sensitive head of his penis that he felt the surging ache of it in his teeth.

Moving with her felt like falling—a slow, safe tumble, a release different from the one that was crawling ever closer. His heart was the only frantic thing about him, pounding against his ribs like an urgent drum. 

Jessamine ran one hand down his chest—lingering, almost reverent, over his heartbeat. Corvo squirmed under her. Sweat beaded where her thighs sheltered his. She palmed his stomach, the jumpy muscles of his abs. Goosebumps erupted on Corvo's belly as she trailed her nails through his pubic hair, then pressed her fingers jerkily to her own sex as if she couldn't help it, rolling her stiff pearl. 

She pitched forward and groaned, deepening the angle of his cock slipping in and out of her. She shuddered all over. Her unbound hair fell forward across her shoulder. "Is it good?" she asked, her voice cracking, "Does it, is it good for you too?"

Corvo nodded frantically. How could it be anything but good for him? Her eyes were luminous like the star-dotted sky, startled by her own pleasure, and it was the best and most exquisite thing Corvo had ever seen, it escaped him how she couldn't know that every nerve in his body sang for her...

A single word came to him, a silent sparking flame of coherence. _Please,_ Corvo thought, and it echoed in him like the toll of a bell. _Don't hold back, I am yours—,_ and it became a mantra in his head, pulsing in time with his heart. _Please, please,_ but his hands felt like malleable hot wax around her waist and he tried to say it with his body instead, arching up into her and baring his throat.

He had no idea how long it took. He clung to her, his fingers numb and tingling, unable to do anything but lie there and _give—_

And wasn't that delicious and heady in itself—seeing Jessamine above him, sweat beading on her stomach, grinding his cock into her the way it felt best for her, following the call of her body? Her inner muscles squeezed wetly around him as her thrusts grew shaky, uncoordinated.

Her body held his so tight, squeezing and squeezing the swollen head of his penis as her hips writhed restlessly. She'd clamped down so unforgivingly tight as she'd come the first time, and if she did that around his cock he would simply fly apart... Even her fingers shook, fluttering weakly over where her folds parted wet and pink around him.

And Corvo found that he could move after all, though his nerves sparked almost unbearably bright, and touched her. Her pearl felt oddly flatter like this, stretched by their joining. He rolled it under his thumb, ran his calluses over the sensitive drawn-back hood.

Jessamine made more of those delicious noises, those sighed moans that trailed almost into cries. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders, vice-tight. She rocked herself down onto him, almost frantic, shoved forward against the slick rub of his fingers, and finally broke, on a startled indrawn breath.

Her vagina seized around his cock like a hot, wet glove. This time she peaked in silence, her pelvic muscles convulsing as she rode the wave and tumbled back down. She was beautiful, her nails sharp points of pressure on his shoulders, gasping as her body released all the raw, clenched-up tension in one dizzying rush.

There was naught to do but follow. He'd been hanging on by a brittle, fraying thread, and the relief of letting go was almost as sweet as the release itself. Corvo arched up and came, in strong, hot spurts that felt like they were pulled out of his very bones. It seemed to go on and on, drawn out by the slick grip of Jessamine's inner muscles, until he groaned rough and broken through his teeth and his back bowed from the force of his orgasm.

Jessamine sank down on him like a falling tree, graceful and inevitable. One moment she was sitting up, open-mouthed, fully caught up in her pleasure. Then her hair spilled over his shoulders, tickling his cheeks, and she crushed their mouths together almost violently, at first missing his lips and knocking their chins together and finally kissing him, hot and damp and utterly unselfconscious.

They were both shaking. Corvo cradled the back of her head in one palm. Her hair slipped through his fingers. A wet slide of Jessamine's lips and tongue against his teeth, her fingers rasping greedily over the beginning stubble on his jaw— Corvo inhaled sharply, but it took only two frantic heartbeats for her to stop.

Jessamine drew back a little. Her breasts had been squashed between them, her nipples hard, hot points of pressure against his chest. She braced herself on her elbows to give him more room, held her breath and deposited a chaste, apologetic peck on his upper lip.

It hadn't jolted him as hard as he'd thought it would, that single second when she'd forgotten herself and tried to lick her way into his mouth. He combed his fingers through her hair, trying to say without words that it was alright, she'd startled him but the chilling shock of it was already receding, sinking back down into a warm, sparking lassitude.

She rested her forehead against his. A strand of her hair got caught between them, tickling Corvo's nose, buffeted by their heaving breaths. Aftershocks still rippled through Jessamine's body, raising a shiver. Corvo ran one hand up the knobs of her spine. A fine sheen of sweat cooled in the wake of his touch. 

If he looked down he could see where they were still joined, where the plump folds of her sex parted around his softening cock, deep pink and sated. 

From somewhere far away, it occurred to him that one of them should possibly have been moving. Easy though it'd been at the end, this was still her first time. Shouldn't he have asked if she was hurt? Surely there was some romantic etiquette that eluded him—perhaps he should've made a witty remark by now, or else left her in peace in her bedroom now that the deed was done, because he was not her lover after all, no matter how many kisses they'd shared...

But Jessamine seemed content to rest right there, where their bodies were sweat-damp and pressed together. She tugged gently on his hair. Her lips brushed his again, soft and slow, and she kissed the full bow of his lower lip.

Corvo closed his eyes. It seemed easy, then, to trust that she was well, and let himself sink into the simplicity of the moment, and share her breaths in the near-dark.

* * *

Corvo woke to the sounds of birds and a hand on his back.

For a sleepy second, he had no idea where he was. No booted feet strolled through the courtyards with military precision, and there was no distant echoing clatter of servants at work: not the Tower, then. Instead he heard the rustle of wind through many trees, birdsong erupting to greet the morning. 

A jolt of alarm wakened him further. A hand on his back, someone behind him— he opened his eyes to tiny slits, just enough to see an ornately carved bed post and a pair of gauzy billowing curtains, and sleepily chastised himself: it was only Jessamine, pressed up against his side, with one arm draped over him. 

They were neither of them used to sharing a bed, and so they'd slept mostly apart. Corvo had half-woken at every movement from Jessamine, who had been restless in the heat, flinging off the sheets only to rouse again and pull them back up an hour later. 

Now, Corvo lay sprawled on his stomach, face half-buried in one of those richly embroidered pillows. Jessamine lay beside him: her ribs pressed up against his side, radiating somewhat sweaty warmth. The contact was sticky-hot, stifling, but Corvo wouldn't have traded it for all the cool winds of Gristol. Her bare toes brushed shyly against his leg. She was awake, breathing lightly onto his bare shoulder and trailing light fingers across his back. 

His back. The _scars._ Corvo woke fully with a reluctant shock. Her touch seemed arbitrary, wandering, but he realized she was tracing the scars: running her fingertips over their raised lines, her touch fading into tingling numbness where the knotted tissue was so thick that it muted sensation. 

Perhaps he could pretend to sleep til she grew bored with touching him. He kept his breathing steady. If he stirred she would ask, and he didn't want to spoil the morning. Why hadn't she placed her wandering fingers elsewhere, anywhere else? 

He had no wish to dive back into growing up in Karnaca's hot, dusty back alleys, under the unforgiving sun and the even less forgiving beady eyes of the shopkeepers who called the city guard over desperately hungry street urchins.

Her breath brushed his upper arm, soft and warm. She traced a welt on his shoulder where the whip had bit deeply. The hair on the back of Corvo's neck stood on end. He had to fight not to squirm.

Then a quiet rattle came from the antechamber. Somebody was trying to turn the knob of the locked door. 

Pretense of sleep forgotten, Corvo turned his head: for a moment he and Jessamine simply stared at each other. She propped herself up on an elbow, looking towards the door in disbelief. 

The knob rattled again. Jessamine was out of the bed in a heartbeat. She threw the blue robe around her shoulders, ran harried fingers through her hair and strode out into the antechamber.

The mattress had barely finished bouncing back from the sudden removal of her weight. Corvo sat up. He could only just see Jessamine through the bedroom door; she'd left it ajar. She rubbed briskly at her eyes and pulled her tangled hair forward so it draped over her shoulder. She opened the door to the hallway, hiding a faked yawn behind one hand.

A chambermaid stood there, round-faced with youth. "Oh," she squeaked, and took a startled step back.

The poor girl blushed deep pink and bowed so low that she nearly dropped her tray. She hadn't been prepared to be faced so suddenly with the Empress—who appeared to have only just woken, with her disheveled hair and eyes puffy from sleep.

"I told the guard I don’t wish to be disturbed," Jessamine said, with a sharp annoyance that surprised him: from her tone, he would've thought the chambermaid had interrupted vitally important business. "Did I ring for you?"

"No, your majesty," the chambermaid said, and bowed again, cowed. "The housekeeper thought— I'm sorry, your majesty..."

Jessamine paused, shifting against the door frame; for a strange, disconnected moment, Corvo wondered if she was sore. She never spoke harshly to servants, least of all the younger ones. She seemed to realize only now that she was an Empress snapping at a young girl.

"Well, alright," Jessamine relented. She made an effort to gentle her voice. "Is that tea?"

"Cold tea, your majesty," the girl blurted. She bowed again and shyly offered the tray. "Peppermint and lemon, your majesty."

Jessamine took the tray. If the chambermaid thought it odd that she was blocking the door, when it would've been proper to allow her inside, she didn't let on. 

She bowed a third time. All that bobbing up and down couldn't be good for her circulation. The heat of the day was rising slowly, the morning sun filling the air with the smell of dried grass and parched earth. When the girl came back up her face looked unhealthily blotchy.

"Wait a moment," Jessamine said. She propped the tray on her hip and hesitated, but then said, "Have the bells rung yet?" 

The Abbey's bells, high up in a tower of the old, pale sandstone building. As soon as they rang in the new year, every bell in the city and the surrounding villages would pick up their call, sweaty workmen climbing up into every tower to spread the news.

But there was something in Jessamine’s voice... Corvo froze, an uneasy shiver skittering down his spine. She sounded _hopeful._

Did she wish that the chambermaid would say yes? That the Fugue Feast had concluded some time in the night so their encounter could come to an end and she had an excuse to ask him to leave?

"They haven't, your majesty," the chambermaid said.

There was a short, uncharacteristic pause. Then Jessamine thanked her, with her usual cool poise that slid like a mask onto her face, and closed the door. 

Corvo was halfway into his trousers when she came back. He'd pulled on his discarded smallclothes with a grimace of mild distaste—he hadn't thought to bring a second pair for the next morning. For all the time he'd spent worrying about this night, he really had not planned some things well.

Then again, it had gone so differently from what he'd been prepared for. They had slid so naturally into sharing Jessamine’s bed for the night... before, he'd thought that once the deed was done, he would have to spend the night under the stars. Not that he would've minded—the weather was certainly warm enough.

But then Jessamine stood in the doorway and saw him struggle into his clothes, like a secret lover— _inappropriate,_ that thought, and yet it stuck in his mind—who knew he'd overstayed his welcome.

And he realized, suddenly, how this looked: him dressing hastily, eager to escape from Jessamine's presence. Like the whole endeavor had been an imposition that he could not wait to put behind him. 

Corvo tried to fling the trousers away. He did not want her to think that her company was so unbearable that he was about to sneak out the window. But one foot was still caught in the fabric, and he succeeded only in kicking the rumpled garment halfway under the bed.

His boots fell over with a thump. Jessamine stared at him, baffled. Corvo felt his face flame. He wished fervently that she'd find the courage to ask him to depart. He stumbled on one foot as he struggled to disentangle himself.

But she just looked him up and down with an understandably doubtful expression and asked, "Would you like some tea?"

In a state of mild panic, Corvo stared back at her. His trousers were turned half inside out, hanging from one hand as he'd yanked them off his stubborn foot. He nodded. 

It was almost, he reflected uneasily, as though the chambermaid had been aware that the Empress had company. The pitcher of tea was large enough to quench the thirst of four, and an array of glasses was stacked on the lacquered tray.

But she couldn't have known. He suppressed a grim smile: here, at last, was one advantage to his deficiency. Even if someone had walked past under her window last night, they would've thought that Jessamine was talking to herself. It was more likely that the girl had just wanted to make sure that the Empress had a whole assortment of finest glasswork to choose from.

The tea was expertly brewed and infused with lemon, cold and refreshing. Corvo drank carefully: it wouldn't do to choke now. It was just as well that the chambermaid hadn't brought food. He never ate where anyone could see him. It hadn't been much of a problem with the other guards in the Duke's employ: their table manners had been less than stellar, and no one had looked askance at the one young soldier who’d won the Blade Verbena and ate with his fingers, pushing food between his molars and into the back of his mouth so he could swallow.

It’d been different at Dunwall Tower, and he’d always been relieved that his duties had him standing behind Jessamine’s chair at formal banquets and dinners, instead of seated by her side. 

Silence stretched and fizzed between them. Corvo barely tasted the tea, refreshing though it was. He cast about for something to say—well, sign—anything at all, from an inane comment regarding the weather to compliments about the tea... 

Jessamine sat across from him, legs folded under her. She'd tied the robe around her waist and didn't seem to notice that it gaped open at the top. She looked down at the glittering surface of her tea as though it held the answers to every secret of the known world.

It seemed as though she was wearing more than just the plain robe. Like a painting in progress, her composure was reassembling itself. With each meditative sip she took, she drew poise and dignity about herself like an invisible cloak. He wished fleetingly that he'd managed to at least put his trousers on before she'd come back.

Even though the bells hadn't rung yet, their world was tilting, shifting back into its proper alignment. And he was stumbling along in the dark, trying to feel his way back to himself and missing by a mile, sharing a cold drink after a night with the Empress of the Isles...

It left him feeling off-kilter, almost hunted. This was probably the kind of dawning unease that descended upon the squabbling nobles in Parliament whenever Jessamine sat straight-backed and tall like that. It was not a familiar feeling. 

Jessamine flicked a quick glance up at him, then looked back into her glass. She visibly braced herself, took a deep breath, and said, "I like your shoulders." 

It was fortunate that he'd been drinking so carefully, because Corvo almost did choke on the tea then. He coughed once, jostling his glass to spill a few drops over his knuckles.

Whatever he had expected her to say to him—a polite inquiry as to how he felt on this fine morning, perhaps, or a meaningless comment about the weather—it wasn't that.

He must've made quite a face in his disbelief, because Jessamine gave him a half-hearted glare. "I really do," she said, chin tilted defiantly as though he had made some actual protest. "You cut a magnificent figure. That cannot be news to you, of course, but I— wished to mention it."

Magnificent? News? Corvo stared at her across the expanse of rumpled sheets. The tea— had it been drugged? But it smelled normal to him, and he'd been drinking it too and he was not feeling any adverse effects.

Jessamine cleared her throat—determined, now, to see this through, whatever she was getting at. "I like that you are taller than me." A nervous smile, there and gone in an instant, a brief scattering of light through clouds. "Though I'm not as short as I was when we met, of course."

She scratched at the flowery patterns that'd been carved into her glass. Color was creeping up her neck, blotchy and bright. "Your hands, too," she said. Corvo felt a queer jolt of fear: oh, what a fool he'd been, pushing past his own concerns and putting his calluses to her soft, soft skin— "I've always enjoyed watching them. You are very graceful. I liked it when you touched me."

A few moments of silence dragged by. Her look was almost challenging. If it hadn't been for her reddened cheeks, she could've been reciting aloud from an uninspired report that'd found its way onto her desk.

She'd pushed herself to speak, and was now braced to bear the consequences, grimly holding on to her battered dignity. Corvo could only blink slowly at her and wonder if there wasn't some way to rewind the whole morning to the beginning. Perhaps, that second time, he'd manage to keep up.

They hadn't been this awkward last night. That last half-hour before sleep hadn't held any hidden grievances. Jessamine had been smiling and smiling. A few times he'd caught her breathing deeply to steady herself, biting her lips in an attempt to tamp it down. 

She probably felt it was unbecoming for an Empress to beam so openly at the man she'd just shared her bed with. Corvo hadn't given a single whit about decorum or propriety. It'd warmed him beyond words to see her delight. There'd been a fierce brightness in her eyes when she looked at him, and it'd washed over him like a caress.

Together, they'd put out the candles and chased the moths out onto the balcony. Then Jessamine had excused herself to the bathroom, walking stiffly, with a somewhat pinched expression on her face: the books hadn't prepared her for the odd sensation of their mingled fluids dripping down the insides of her thighs.

She'd come back blushing, but none the worse for wear. Corvo had just been about to assure her that he did not expect to stay the night—that the season was more than warm enough for him to comfortably sleep in a barn on the way back to Dunwall—when she'd taken his hand and tugged him towards the bed.

Last night she'd been dozing at his side, sighing in the heat. Now, a shutter had closed behind Jessamine's eyes, and Corvo only wished he knew what had tipped the scales. 

He put the glass away: he needed both hands to maneuver through these strange, troubled waters. He signed, _'What exactly do you mean?'_

Jessamine sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "What I mean to say is," she said, slowly, like she was reciting something important from memory, "you are everything I could've wished for in a companion. I— I only hope that I..." 

She faltered. For just a second, a trembling frown furrowed her brow, and something guarded and vulnerable flitted past behind her eyes. He quashed the warmth that kindled in his chest. This was not the _time_ to bask like a petted cat in the blinding relief of her praise. 

Jessamine shook her head, dismissing the moment, and asked briskly, "Is there anything I should've done differently?"

Perhaps, if he just sat still for long enough, her reasoning would unfold itself neatly in front of his eyes. Spots of hectic red bloomed high on Jessamine's cheekbones, leaving no doubt as to what she meant. Corvo wondered how long she'd lain awake before he'd woken, putting together this little speech, examining and discarding words.

The line of her shoulders was tense, defensive. Her hands around the glass had gone white-knuckled. Into the lingering silence, she said, "If it's a lot, I'll fetch some pen and paper." 

The Empress and her _lists._ She started to gather her legs under her, a precursor to getting up, and without thinking Corvo put a hand on her arm to stop her.

He removed his touch as soon as she stilled, just in case it was unwelcome. But she just looked at him, cautiously hopeful now that he wasn't rattling off all the mistakes she thought she'd made, and his hands moved on their own accord. _'You haven't done anything wrong.'_

At least that made her sit back down. Jessamine huffed audibly. "Well, good," she said with some impatience, a bit of her tension working its way out, "but I would hope I managed better than just to avoid missteps."

Corvo resisted the urge to rub at his temples. How in the world was she even thinking about it like that? Those damned novels and the subtle hooks they'd dug into Jessamine's thoughts... _Missteps,_ indeed, as if there was a— a choreography to it, a number of patterns that needed to be fulfilled...

Heat rose to his face again, a sudden, tingling burst. He wished he'd had a gift for flattery like some of the courtiers, with their subtle turns of phrase.

He wasn't cut out for this. He was a man of few words—and anyway, what words were there to tell her how beautiful she'd been above him, how every single nerve in his body had yearned towards her like a compass seeking north?

Finally he just signed, _'There are no missteps in this dance. There's only our agreement and the promise I made.'_ Jessamine opened her mouth, but he forestalled her with a raised palm. _'I promised you, too, that I'd let you know if anything unwanted occurred.'_

Of course she hadn't thought about that, in her hurried quest to find something in her own performance to criticize. Jessamine blinked, confused. One finger ran restlessly along the rim of her glass. 

Corvo sighed to himself. He felt another one of those bursts of resentment at the Karnacan soldier who'd cut out his tongue. If he'd still been able to speak, he could've stilled her nervous fidgeting, wrapped her pale hand in his in reassurance.

 _'Nothing happened that I did not enjoy.'_ Jessamine stared at his fingers like she'd just begun to learn the language of gestures. If Corvo hadn't known better he'd've thought she was holding her breath. _'Our night was nice.'_

His fingers brushed his open palm and he wanted to smack himself. _Our_ night? It had been _hers,_ all hers, he knew that, had felt it right down to every beat of his heart. 

And then that word again. _Nice_ —as if that single, simple syllable was enough to describe Jessamine's eyes, starlit and vulnerable, or her deft hands on him, the silky cascade of her hair over her shoulder...

"Well," Jessamine said, still slightly doubtful but mollified, pressing relentlessly onwards, "if last night was— was to your liking, then surely... if there's no..."

She never fumbled for control like this. Somehow, his simple admission had been enough to upend the neatly organized shelves of her thoughts. Corvo wondered if she'd outright expected him to number the mistakes she'd made, in descending order of relevance, and now that he had not, she was caught wrong-footed. 

Jessamine wiped a hand over her hot cheeks. If it'd been possible to suppress a blush through sheer force of will, surely she would've accomplished it. She looked at him plainly, though her jaw was tight with embarrassment, and Corvo could almost see her discard her subtle maneuvering.

"I don't know how to _ask_ this," she blurted out, frustrated. "In the books it seemed— they weren't very clear on what should happen the morning after. But it seemed like complimenting their, their partner and discussing the past night was an acceptable way to introduce the subject..."

And there was his chance to understand. Corvo interjected quickly, _'The subject of what?'_

"Practice," Jessamine said, like it was obvious. 

She was too polite to add that he really was being surprisingly dense. But it was obvious in the way her mouth firmed into a thin line, exasperated and cautious.

Corvo heard her clearly, but it still took him a moment. _Practice?_ It was, once again, the last thing he'd expected her to say. If he'd been forced to guess at gunpoint, perhaps he would've suggested that she really did wish him to leave, and this was just an unusually roundabout way of softening the dismissal with flattery.

But this? Surely his memory could not be this bad: in her proposal, Jessamine had written only about one singular... implementation of their agreement. There'd been no mention of _practice._ What was it that he hadn't seen last night, that he couldn't pin down even now? Or maybe— 

A sudden stab of cold pierced him and spread through his chest. Twice she'd taken her pleasure from him last night, and now... Did she think that she _owed_ him?

Almost immediately, Corvo found himself dismissing the thought: if this was a matter of debt, she would've addressed it head on. He was sure of it—Jessamine would not have been blushing like this over an imbalance between them, going stiffly through the unfamiliar motions of imitating the romances from her books.

But she could not possibly have thought this through. _'The books, while educational, are not to be followed to the letter,'_ he signed. Jessamine avoided his eyes, instead looking very intently at his hands. Her cheeks were still tinted pink. _'Our situation is quite different. Surely you haven't found any stories in which a mere soldier became a frequent guest in an Empress' bedchamber.'_

Well, at least that got her to look at him: she fixed him with an unimpressed stare. _"Cor_ vo," Jessamine said, with that now-familiar emphasis, and to his surprise she stretched out her leg, pale against the sheets as it emerged from her dark blue robe, and poked him in the shin with her bare toes. Her toenails, though neatly trimmed, were quite sharp. 

"I'm aware that our situation is different, thank you," she said, crisply. "It's true that I have never had anything like this before, but that does not mean I feel— _compelled_ to follow some unpleasant script."

Her toes came to rest against his leg, an insistent pressure. She was leaning towards him, and her eyes were as blue as the morning sky, so bright that they stole his breath. "It's just that I do not know how to ask this," she repeated, quieter now, _honest,_ "without making it sound like an order. —And you are not a _mere_ anything."

That last one was said more like an afterthought. Jessamine blinked, startled that it'd slipped out. She cleared her throat and withdrew her toes. Eyes averted again, she stared at her own foot with a small frown as though it'd moved quite on its own accord.

"Of course," she said to the fine bones of her ankle, "if you would prefer not to partake in— in carnal matters anymore, now that we've consummated our agreement, that's quite alright..."

Corvo found himself surfacing abruptly from the bludgeoning shock of her frank words. He bristled lightly. Did she think that her tentative kisses had been some sort of hardship he'd endured to win the prize of their night together? 

"—I told you," Jessamine added quickly, probably seeing the protest in his expression though he hadn't moved, "that there'd be no repercussions. Corvo, I would never hold it against you or, or _sulk,_ if you'd rather stop."

Her vehemence was startling, unexpected. He was signing almost before she finished speaking: _'I believe you,'_ he replied, swift but truthful.

Jessamine's gaze flickered across his face, intent and searching, like she expected to catch him in the act of lying. It wasn't unlike being seized up across a dusty sparring ring. But then her shoulders uncurled, and she released a long sigh. 

She'd... thought about this, he realized. It had stood out starkly in those unfinished drafts he'd found in her desk. _I will not corner him,_ she'd written, a note to herself, wary of her higher station.

"I've told you before," Jessamine said, "that I want to be proficient. It's— good that you found no fault with my performance, but I would think the next step is to..."

She hesitated. Since her adolescence Corvo hadn't seen her falter like this. It reminded him of how she'd gone over and over her very first speech to the members of Parliament. He didn't want to be the one to make her just as nervous. 

_'Practice?'_ he signed, offering it back to her, and she nodded, relieved.

That, at least, he could understand. Comprehension dawned slowly, along with a bright and hopeful shock. His chest felt suddenly constricted, his ribcage too small to hold his lungs. And oh, the hot, stumbling beat of his heart, surging right up against his throat...

Surely, he thought, a little desperately, surely there was something else he was missing. He tried to take a deep breath and quash the dizzying rush. She _couldn't_ intend to settle for _his_ company, when she could've had the attention of any noble lordling at court.

It had to be because, as much as their differences allowed, they _were_ friends, and he was Serkonan after all. He hadn't been born into Gristol nobility, and had no political aspirations, no hidden agendas—he might have been just a soldier, but at least she could be sure that those ulterior motives were utterly beyond him.

And Jessamine was staring at him, he realized, narrow-eyed with a dawning realization of her own. She set aside her glass. She'd been all but clinging to it, but now she found her confidence, in the questioning tilt of her head and that _look_ that all but burned into him, reading him although his fingers hadn't formed a single sign.

"Whatever you are thinking, stop," she said. Her toes flexed like she was about to poke him again. "It is not that you are... convenient. I don't care where you come from, or who you think might be _better."_

Splotches of color still lingered on her cheeks, but the singeing heat of her embarrassed blush was subsiding. There was only that pure light in her eyes, surging up proudly. "You are close to my heart," Jessamine told him. "I would not trust anyone else with this."

A small puzzle piece slotted into place, sliding to complete the picture. Corvo stared at his Empress, hardly daring to breathe, while the memory came to him: just last night, she'd told him that she wanted him. How could he have forgotten that, even for a minute? 

A confession, sighed so sweetly against his cheek... She'd said it last night, but it was only now that the words truly hit him. _"I've wanted you for so long,"_ she'd whispered, _"I hardly know where to start."_

Oh, how he'd _fretted_ on the journey from Dunwall, planning each careful word, keeping a tight, stern hold on his own desire. But Jessamine must've known it all along—she'd felt it like a bursting seed in her blossoming feminine interest, that he would never, ever crush what she placed into his hands.

Even now, she was so brave and determined. For a long moment he just looked at her, and saw her throat work as she swallowed, the sooty trembling dip of her lashes against her cheek. At the small glimpse of her nervousness, Corvo wanted to kiss her, hold her like he had the night before.

In his chest his heart seized wildly, clenching around a rush of nearly painful affection. _'The books,'_ he signed, with hands that shook, _'seem complicated and roundabout. It can be much simpler.'_

It was Jessamine's turn to blink at him, caught off-guard. Perhaps she hadn't expected to get such a swift answer from him—as if this was something he'd have to think carefully about and consider all his options. "Simpler?"

 _'I would like to practice with you.'_ He hesitated, then tacked on: _'For as long as you will have me.'_

And _still_ Jessamine peered at him like she wanted to look inside his skull. "You are sure that there is no sense of... obligation?"

Corvo smiled helplessly. He felt giddy and young, like he could dive off her balcony head-first and not feel a thing when the ground rushed up to meet him, like he might run the whole way back to Dunwall in the blistering heat.

It'd been _him_ who worried endlessly that Jessamine was trapping herself, and now it was her asking him almost the same question. She was... concerned for him, he realized, perhaps in the same way that he'd been for her.

It took him a few long seconds to even remember the sign. _'No obligation,'_ he assured her, tapping the fingertips of both hands just under his right clavicle. 

He wanted to tell her how beautiful she'd been and still was, how something deep inside him trembled still, to see her with her hair down and no make-up on her face... But in the end he just signed, because there would be no more misunderstandings between them today if he could help it, _'I have enjoyed our night. You are wondrous.'_

"Oh," Jessamine said. "I— well. That's good."

She stared at him, stunned. Even if the bells had tolled in the distance, he doubted she would've heard them. Her gaze seemed stuck to where his right hand had just been, passing by his jaw twice with the fingers slightly spread.

"That's good," she repeated. And she pressed her lips together but he saw it anyway, that beaming smile from last night, lighting up her whole face and crinkling the sensitive skin around her eyes and he couldn't help it, he leaned carefully towards her and Jessamine met him halfway.

Her lips were soft and damp. He imagined he almost caught a bit of the tea's tart, refreshing flavor. Jessamine sighed against his mouth: he did not need to be able to taste her smile to feel its sweetness straight down to his bones. She did not seem to mind the stubble that had well and truly grown in overnight on his upper lip. She just kissed him, and held her hand to his cheek until Corvo felt hardly able to breathe for it, filled to the brim with a fierce and leaping joy.

The chambermaid, Corvo reflected a moment later, would likely never know how fortunate it was that she'd brought along a whole tray of glassware in her overzealousness. But he hoped that the fates would direct some luck back to her when she needed it.

Jessamine's cheeks held a healthy blush—not the burning spots of embarrassment, but a simple glow. The blue robe was soft against Corvo's shins. She'd scooted closer until she sat right by him, close enough for him to feel her breath. 

The sun had risen high enough that she had to squint to see him. The air crackled between them, alive with a humming tension—not unlike the conspiratorial companionship they'd shared as adolescents, when the young heiress had gotten up to some mischief and worked tirelessly to convince him to help her cover up the aftermath.

Jessamine sucked briefly on her lower lip as though to memorize the taste of their kiss. Her eyes sought his, brightened by the sunlight. She raised her glass. "To first times," she offered, "and those thereafter?"

He smiled slightly. He could get behind that. Corvo clinked his glass against hers and they drank.

Sunlight spilled into the room through the thin curtains. The morning was theirs, but by tonight they would be back in Dunwall, and Jessamine would be swept up in the busy clatter and smoke-filled air of the capital, attending New Year's banquets, visiting the Abbey.

The cogs and mechanisms of their world would slide and click back into place. Things would be the same, but not. Her hair would be back up in its sleek twist, held in place by a multitude of pins. 

But Corvo would remember how it'd looked tangled around her face, black and unruly, even as he returned to his accustomed spot: four steps behind her and one to the left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Guys, I can't even tell you how much your feedback means to me. It's been so long since I posted anything & y'all have been so welcoming. Thank you for that!
> 
> And again, thanks to [Drac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac) for all of their support, and for convincing me to post this in the first place. When I finished the final scene last night they were holding my hand in the CC chat & it was _so_ worth staying up for. ♥ 
> 
>  
> 
> (I may be nursing a plot bunny for a sequel because I've always wanted to write pregnancy fic. Writing can be self-indulgent to the point of ridiculousness, right?)
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to everyone who kudos'd and commented, and if you'd like to talk, hmu on [Tumblr](http://derryday.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heyderryday). Until next time! ♥
> 
> (v important reminder that [lmaodies](http://lmaodies.tumblr.com/) created a gorgeous piece of **[NSFW fanart](https://only-half-sfw.tumblr.com/post/157054668467/my-fanciest-smut-yet-wipes-tear-based-on-this)** for this fic (OMFG FANART Y'ALL I CAN'T). ♥)

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to [Drac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac) who gives the best alpha-reader feedback!!
> 
> I've taken a few liberties with the canon timeline; for instance, in this fic, Corvo & Jessamine are 28 and 21 when they become lovers, not 25/18. Jessamine's father died a few months earlier than in canon. For the signing, I used ASL (American Sign Language) by way of Google-fu, but transcribed Corvo's dialogue into regular written English. 
> 
> Normally I don't post WIPs until they're at least first-draft done, but it's been so long since I posted anything that I was frankly getting really sad at the state of my AO3 page. So I'm just gonna try this whole WIP thing now. I'm pretty nervous about it, so feedback would mean a lot to me. :3
> 
> [Tumblr](http://derryday.tumblr.com/), if you like.


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